Disability service providers protest change in Medicaid rate increases

DPHHS Director Richard Opper

Providers of general care for the developmentally disabled are asking the public to speak out against a plan from the state Department of Public Health and Human Services to alter an increase in Medicaid dollars for raises.

DPHHS is proposing to take two-percent of a total four-percent increase in rates for these providers and distribute that money in other ways than just an equal raise to all providers. DPHHS Director Richard Opper says this could include putting in place ‘performance measures’ to give higher raises to facilities operating more successfully.

“We are always looking for ways to deliver services more efficiently and effectively,” Opper said. “So, if a provider were to come to us with a more creative way to distribute services…I think that kind of innovation needs to be rewarded.”

Opper said he does not have specifics as to what those performance measures may be, and says that’s important, because it’s something he thinks the Department should negotiate with some of the providers of services for the developmentally disabled.

“There has not been any outreach,” said Missoula Developmental Service Corporation CEO Fran Sadowski, who points out these new increased rates go into effect on July first. “So, if that’s his (Opper’s) intent, when is it gonna happen?”

The 2013 Legislature approved two-percent rate increases across the board for providers of Medicaid Services. However, lawmakers singled out providers of services for the developmentally disabled for the larger, four-percent, increases. Sadowski said it’s not unusual for one type of provider to receive a larger increase. She says providers of services for the developmentally disabled have not seen an increase in their rates since 2009.

“We’re not getting rich on this type of increase,” Sadowski said. “Some folks are just trying to stay afloat.”

Sadowski said the disabled patients of facilities like her’s are often under 24-hour care, and if those places shut down the patients may end up on the streets, in a nursing home, or at the state’s institution in Boulder, the Montana Developmental Center. She said MDC costs taxpayers more per patient than community-based centers.

Sen. Mary Caferro (D-Helena)

Sen. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, led the legislative effort to have higher rate increases for providers of services to the developmentally disabled. She does not at all approve of the idea to make any of the rate increases performance-based.

“There was nothing in the (bill’s) language about distribution options, there are no options,” she said. “It would be wonderful if the executive would respect the legislature and follow legislative intent.”

Opper said the Department wants to negotiate on the plan proposal, adding a straight four-percent increase is not off the table. The public comment period for the proposal ends May 30th

Montana receives “F” for its disclosure laws

Map of grades on disclosure laws given by the National Institute on Money in State Politics

A report released this week by the National Institute on Money in State Politics gives Montana a failing grade on its disclosure laws related to campaign spending in elections.

Twenty-five other states received “F”s in the report, while 15 states received an “A”.

“What we found interesting was that the state’s were either great or awful,” said the Institute’s Managing Director Denise Roth Barber. “There were very few in between.”

Barber describes NIMSP as a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that takes as one of its charges strongly advocating full disclosure in political spending. The report graded states on “disclosure requirements for super PACs, nonprofits and other outside spending groups.”

Barber said there is quite a bit of interest right now on the national level to require more disclosure on spending in federal races.

“But at the state level,” she said, “we don’t actually know in too many states, including Montana, how much money is even spent, let alone where it came from.”

She said the major campaign finance overhaul pitched by Gov. Steve Bullock and carried by Sen. Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, called the TRACE Act, could have single-handedly brought Montana’s grade up from an “F” to an “A”. On top of increasing disclosure, that bill would have increased the fines for violating Montana’s current election laws. The bill passed the Senate 29-21 after a heated debate. However, the bill never made it to the House floor and died when the Legislature adjourned.

Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, complimented Sen. Peterson and supporters for their intentions with the TRACE Act, but said he and other opponents believe the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear: money equals speech when it comes to political spending.

“The protection of anonymity in political speech has been a part of this country since before the founding of the Republic,” Moore said.

What happens now with the Flathead Water Compact?

Credit: Flickr, Peggy2012CREATIVELENZ

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are now mulling their options after the 2013 Montana Legislature failed to pass the Flathead Water Rights Compact; but CSKT officials are hopeful the agreement can be passed by the 2015 Legislature.

The Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission, made up of nine appointed members, has been working with the CSKT on the Flathead Water Compact for 12 years. The commission crafts agreements with the tribes to settle water disputes between the general public and tribes, who hold senior water rights guaranteed in treaties signed in the 1800s. Flathead is the last compact left for the state to pass with a tribe, and it’s the only one not to have passed through the Montana Legislature.

The House Judiciary Committee tabled the bill after its March hearing. Lawmakers heard long testimony from supporters and opponents of the compact. Some felt more time needed to be taken to evaluate the concerns of those opposed, who say the compact will be taking the water rights of non-tribal irrigators.

“Well, the Legislature hasn’t been working on it for twelve years,” said Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls. “It was dropped on our lap at the end of February and it’s a 1200-page document.”

Fielder said she wanted to understand a document as complex as the compact before voting on it. Fielder supports the House Judiciary Committee tabling the bill and hopes the Legislature will be able to take the next two years to address concerns.

CSKT Communications Director Rob McDonald says negotiations on the compact are finished.

“They’re hard-forged agreements that took a lot of hard work,” McDonald said. “(The negotiations) were aired out in the public very intensely for the last four years.”

Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed a bill from Sen. Verdell Jackson which would have attempted to re-open negotiations between the state and CSKT. Water Rights Compact Commission member Rep. Dan Salomon, R-Ronan, said he agrees with that veto.

“You can ask the tribes to come back and it’s entirely up to them whether they do or not,” Salomon said. “We can’t force anyone to renegotiate like some people want.”

In Bullock’s veto message, he directs the Compact Commission to draft a report addressing the concerns of Flathead Water Compact opponents. CSKT hopes the legislature decides to adopt the compact in 2015, otherwise the tribes have the option of taking their disputes to court. The state estimates as many as 10-thousand claims may be filed if that happens.

Bullock vetoes draw GOP criticism

Governor Steve Bullock has finished working through bills from the 2013 Legislative Session. Bullock signed 393 bills this session.

But Capitol Reporter Dan Boyce says he vetoed 71.  

In addition, check out this report from Matt Gouras of the Associated Press:

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A legislative session that began with promises of compromise ended with a whole bunch of vetoes from Gov. Steve Bullock on Tuesday — and plenty of criticism from Republicans who argued the governor was undermining bipartisan efforts.

Bullock let 10 low-profile measures become law without his signature on Tuesday, the last of the bills sitting on his desk from the session that adjourned late last month. A day earlier he was much more active when he issued 27 vetoes to bring his total to 71 for the session — just shy of Brian Schweitzer’s record of 78 from two years ago.

Republicans — including members of a coalition that helped advance the session’s biggest bills — criticized the governor’s moves as overly partisan. The lawmakers had entered the session hopeful of improved relations after mostly coming up short in battles with former Gov. Brian Schwietzer.

Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, R-Kalispell, addresses the House Taxation Committee. (Photo by Amy R. Sisk. Community News Service. University of Montana.)

“I wish the governor had taken a different tact. It appears he took an aggressive tact just like Brian Schweitzer,” said Republican state Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, a Kalispell farmer. “It hurts. Truthfully hurts. At least we knew with Schweitzer that he didn’t respect us. And while there was never a quid pro quo with this governor, we were working with him to deliver good responsible legislation and now when it was his turn to do the right thing for the right reasons it appears he took a very partisan attitude.

Tutvedt, who is among a dissident GOP group billing itself the “responsible Republicans,” noted that Bullock took out many measures from that group such as plans to improve agricultural research and to help oil-boom towns deal with overloaded infrastructure.

Tutvedt said those Republicans who had been willing to work with Democrats will be much more cautious next session.

“I had high hopes for Gov. Bullock,” Tutvedt said. “We are going to have to take a more guarded view next time.”

Bullock argued in veto messages sent to the lawmakers that he needed to save money with the vetoes to get closer to his targeted surplus of $300 million, compared to the less than $200 million left by lawmakers. He also argued the GOP tax measures disproportionately helped the wealthy.

The governor was planning a news conference for later Tuesday.

Republican leaders bemoaned the loss of some of their priorities, including income tax cuts that included a plan for simplification that reduced rates and got rid of most tax credits.

Representative Mark Blasdel (R-Somers)

Republican House Speaker Mark Blasdel criticized the governor for vetoing a bill that would have exempted businesses from paying equipment tax on pollution control equipment mandated by the federal government. Yet he noted the governor signed money-spending measures, such as those to fix the state’s pension system and give state employees a pay raise.

“I think a lot of his actions show that his interest has been to take care of state government and not to take a look at addressing concerns of everyday citizens,” Blasdel said.

Blasdel commended Bullock for improving the tone in Helena, compared to when Schweitzer was torching Republican bills with a hot-iron VETO brand. The results, however, were the same, Blasdel said.

“I still think his vetoes show his ideology and his political stances. I think the tone changed, but his ideology and stances didn’t,” said Blasdel, a Somers restaurant owner.

Lawmakers will be polled on many of the measures for a veto override, which requires a supermajority of lawmakers and would require unlikely Democratic support. Such veto overrides are rare.

In total for the session, the governor received 490 bills. He signed 387 of them, vetoed 71, used line-item veto authority on three spending bills and let another 28 become law without his signature.

Conservative Republican leaders — who rarely supported any of the budget bills that were largely crafted by Democrats and some Republicans — bashed the governor. Estimates show spending goes up about 13 percent over the next two years under the plan becoming law.

“His vetoes show that he just wants the status quo. He wants the establishment running supreme over taxpayers,” Senate Majority Leader Art Wittich of Bozeman said.

Flathead Legislators on the good, the bad, and the OK of the latest session

Flathead Legislators met with business and community leaders in Kalispell Thursday to give a wrap up of key changes from the latest legislative session. Four Republicans from the Flathead; Senators Jon Sonju and Bruce Tutvedt, and Representatives Mark Blasdel and Scott Reichner spoke of the goals they held going into the legislature. The legislature started off with a $500-million surplus that the representatives said people had many ideas of how best to use.

“There’s income tax reduction, there’s business equipment tax reduction, and then there’s more spending that people want. This bill was something that I championed, and unfortunately it fell to the other interests that were out there,” Representative Reichner said he was pushing for permanent property tax relief, but he said business equipment tax relief won out.

The tax change awaiting Governor Bullock’s signature exempts the first $100,000 of equipment that a business has from taxes, and then business equipment would be taxed at a %1.5 up to $6-million of value.

President of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce Joe Unterreiner said this is estimated to remove about 13,000 small businesses from the business equipment tax rolls. Unterreiner said the Chamber hopes the Governor signs this bill.

“This is equipment that’s taxed regardless of whether this business is making a profit or not. So, if we want to encourage businesses to invest in the state, then we need to try to minimize the equipment with which they’re using to create production and productivity,” Unterreiner said.

Unterreiner said they would like to see Montana’s business environment continue to become more competitive from a regulatory standpoint as well as in the tax structure. He said the session made positive steps forward from a business environment viewpoint, but more work needs to be done.

 

 

Retirees ask for veto on pension fixes

A group representing retired public employees has written a letter urging Governor Steve Bullock to veto the bill fixing the very pension systems they rely on.

The letter from Association of Montana Retired Public Employees President Russell Wrigg  faults the bill (HB454) for reducing the annual cost of living increases guaranteed to retirees.

“The Association feels betrayed by your office and is adamantly opposed to House Bill 454 at this time,”  Wrigg writes to the governor, “House Bill 454 could have been modified in a way that would be much more palatable to the Association and its members, and all retirees, without inflicting the harm that it has.”

Montana’s two biggest retirement systems are facing more than a $4 billion shortfall over the next 30 years if the bills passed by the legislature to shore up those plans are not signed by the governor. The measures balance the budgets of the pensions by requiring both employers and employees pitch in more money, some natural resource or general fund money is kicked in, and benefits are reduced slightly. It’s that last part that has angered retirees.

The AMRPE initially supported the fix to the Public Employee Retirement System, before it was amended to reduce the cost of living increases. Wrigg says the AMRPE was not consulted on those amendments.

“It is our understanding that your office was actively involved in those amendments that further trampled on the rights of retirees,” Wrigg writes in his letter.

Gov. Bulllock’s Budget Director Dan Villa says the administration understands the concerns of the retirees on the reductions and admits they will likely be found unconstitutional.

“We believe that ultimately when current and retired employees bring challenge to them that they will be successful,” Villa said, adding the bill fixes the retirement system with or without the reduction in yearly raises which he said just make the fix more aggressive.

“When and if they are found unconstitutional by the state courts, we will still have a solvent public pension system that does not increase taxes and we’ll be the first state in the country to do so,” Villa said.

Wrigg said he wants the pension fix bills to pass without the raise reductions–he would prefer that to them dying through a veto. He says the group will consider legal actions against the bills if the governor signs them, which is expected. But, he doesn’t approve of the tactic.

“Legislation through litigation is really not the way to solve our problems in this state,” he said.

Could state employees still get a 5 and 5 pay plan?

The president of the state’s largest public employee union said Wednesday he will still try to negotiate five percent base pay raises for state employees each of the next two years even though lawmakers only appropriated 75-percent of the funds necessary to do so.

“The bill as introduced had five and five on July one,” MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver said, “but you can make five and five happen anytime.”Legislators cut $38 million from the pay plan bill originally negotiated between employee unions and former-Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Conservative lawmakers argued a full five and five plan was too expensive and would be giving pay increases to many employees who had received other types of raises over the past couple of years. These Republicans wanted a leaner pay plan that specifically requested the governor and unions give greater emphasis to the minority of state employees who have not received any raises for more than four years.

“We see that as a legislative encouragement, but not a mandate,” Feaver said. “It doesn’t say ‘you will do this’ and, in fact, we would believe that would be violative of collective bargaining.”

Feaver said MEA-MFT is standing firm on negotiating the five and five. He says the state can get there by delaying the implementation of raises, lowering their overall cost.

“If you start (the 5 and 5) January 1, you save $34 million,” Feaver said, although he advocates starting at the beginning of October.

“It’s a big priority to me to make sure that we do this the best way that we can with the money that was given to us,” Gov. Steve Bullock said. He said his first priority is to start working through the 200 or so bills delivered to his desk after the close of the 2013 Legislature. Afterward, he said his administration will begin negotiations on the state pay plan–probably in the next few weeks.

Unofficial ‘pocket vetoes’ kill several bills

Governor Steve Bullock says GOP leadership blocked a number of measures during the 2013 Legislature using an unofficial parliamentary procedure called a ‘pocket veto’, where a presiding officer will fail to schedule a bill for a vote or hearing by the deadline to do so.

At least two bills in the House have been identified as ‘pocket vetoes’–HB217 and SB19. Both made it to the Governor’s desk in their original forms but were not scheduled in the House after they returned with amendatory vetoes from Bullock. At least one bill in the Senate, SJ27, was not scheduled in the Senate.

“Nowhere in how we explain the way government works to kids is it ‘Well, you provide an amendatory veto and then if one individual doesn’t like it he can just not schedule it and make sure the bill dies,'” Bullock said.

“Well, obviously I have the opportunity to choose when to schedule them,” House speaker Mark Blasdel, R-Somers said, adding the Legisature has rules in place that can override a speaker’s decision not to schedule a bill.

“Part of my job is to stand up for legislators when their bills take a turn for the worst and something they didn’t intend for and didn’t expect,” he said.

HB217 was originally designed to clarify election laws regarding religious organizations. Yet, after Bullock received the bill he amended in disclosure provisions from his failed campaign finance overhaul legislation, the TRACE Act. Speaker Blasdel calls this a ‘hijacking’ of the bill’s original intent.

“Bills like that, and my vetoes,” Bullock said, “they should rise and fall on their merits. Let individuals actually vote them up or down. Don’t just try to hide them away in some desk drawer.”

In a Thursday interview, Bullock also said dozens of bills that passed both the House and Senate have yet to be signed by Republican Leadership and delivered to his desk. Senate President Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, was in his office at that time signing those bills. Essmann’s office said Friday all were signed and delivered.

Republican infighting, Democrat wins and the new Senate race

Tonight on “Capitol Talk”, our weekly legislative analysis program, News Director Sally Mauk talks with Lee newspaper reporters Chuck Johnson and Mike Dennison about the growing split in the Republican party, who won and lost what in this legislative session, and the week’s political stunner: Senator Baucus’s decision not to seek re-election…

Governor, GOP leadership react to 2013 Legislature

Montana Capitol. Jacob Baynham, Community News Service, UM School of Journalism.

The 2013 Legislature garnered largely positive remarks from Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock and a host of criticisms from conservative Republican leadership after lawmakers concluded their business Wednesday.

“The Democrats were able to work with commonsense Main Street Republicans, and we got a lot of great things accomplished,” Bullock said, citing the passage of state employee pay raises, a fix of indebted retirement systems and funding for major construction projects on college campuses.

The governor did not see his entire legislative agenda passed, however. House Republicans halted legislation to use federal Medicaid expansion money to extend health insurance to tens of thousands of Montana’s poor. Bullock also lamented the failure of his plan for a $400 per homeowner tax rebate.

This session saw an often-dramatic split between GOP leadership and a group of moderates who label themselves “Responsible Republicans,” as Jackie Yamanaka of Yellowstone Public Radio reports. The conservative leadership team of Senate President Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, and Majority Leader Art Wittich, R-Bozeman, say few, if any, of their priorities made it through the process.

“The people who like to spend a lot of government money were winners,” Wittich said. “The losers were the taxpayers and the people hoping for reform.”

Wittich believes at least a quarter of the state’s record-setting $500 million dollar surplus should have been given back as tax relief. He sponsored a tax rebate bill which passed the legislature and is on the way to the governor’s desk, yet Bullock has been critical of the proposal as providing too much relief for corporations and the wealthy when compared with his failed $400 rebate plan.

Wittich also calls the pension fixed passed by the legislature a “bail-out” of a failed system, and believes the pay plan spends too much.

“We, in effect, had three minority caucuses,” President Essmann said about the split in the Senate GOP,  “that at various times on various issues would coalesce as a majority to act.”

“We kept track,” Wittich said, “and for every vote where we held firm on a partisan basis, we lost two.”

But Wittich says conservative Republicans still accomplished more this session than in 2011.

Legislative Services reports that 1201 bills were introduced in total during the 2013 Session. The Governor has signed 268 as of Thursday afternoon. At least another 200 bills passed by the legislature wait for his decision.