By David Abbey
A recent opinion piece by two Senate committee chairs, published on this Web site on March 3, was headlined, “Education, health care took back seat in state budget.” The writers raised concerns about underfunding Medicaid, failing to pass a new public school funding formula bill and not scheduling hearings on key health and school measures.
In fact, the Legislative Finance Committee (which includes six of the 10 members on the Senate Finance Committee) had a hearing on universal health care on Oct. 4, and most of the Dec. 4 budget hearing for the Human Services Department was devoted to universal health care. On Dec. 17 most legislators attended a special briefing on health reform and coverage. On Jan. 9, the Senate Finance Committee spent a day on health-care reform issues that included presentations from Human Services Secretary Pamela Hyde and Sen. Dede Feldman.
Additionally, on Oct. 26 and Dec. 7, LFC heard reports on the proposed new school-funding formula, and on Jan. 8, a joint hearing of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations committees heard the “Public School Funding Formula Study.” On Feb. 2, prior to Senate Finance Committee action on the General Appropriation Act, Senate Education Committee Chair Cynthia Nava and Sen. Vernon Asbill met with the Senate Finance Committee members to reach an agreement on adjustments to House Bill 2.
With respect to funding priorities, general-fund appropriations for public education for the 2009 fiscal year will increase by $123 million, or 5 percent. Medicaid will grow by $91 million, or 13 percent. Total recurring general-fund appropriations will increase by $360 million, or 6.3 percent. That means public education and Medicaid get 59 percent of fiscal-year 2009 spending growth. With the Health and Higher Education departments added, the share of new spending in these priority areas reaches 73 percent, with the rest of budget growth including important areas like children’s services, public safety and state-employee pay.
Very simply, no money was left by the end of the session for additional health and education spending measures and there was no interest in raising taxes to pay for additional expansions. It is important to remember that budget-making is a balancing act and no one constituency will get everything it wants.
Abbey is the director of the Legislative Finance Committee.