BUDGET NOT BALANCED:
Hagåtña, Guam – As part of an ongoing series regarding Bill 282-35, the Office of the Governor issues the following statement:
BUDGET BASICS #1
DON’T ABANDON PUBLIC HEALTH HEROES
BILL 282-35: The budget, as passed, guts Public Health operations appropriation by more than $3.7 million when compared to the agency’s request.
HARM: That’s a crippling reduction to the lead agency fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and deploying our social safety net. It could result in the forced furlough of some experienced locally funded Public Health personnel at the height of a pandemic.
The war against COVID-19 can’t be won by abandoning our Public Health heroes in the middle of the fight. By gutting operations at Public Health, an untold number of men and women could be furloughed when we need them most. At its heart, a budget is a statement of values. This budget seems to abandon the thing we value most—the health of our people.
BUDGET NOT BALANCED
BUDGET BASICS #2
MEDICAID CUTS WILL HURT PEOPLE
BILL 282-35: The budget, as passed, will mean $13 million less in Federal Medicaid funding for Guam.
HARM: This will leave the most vulnerable members of our community without adequate healthcare at a time when they need it most. The measure would forfeit Medicaid match by nearly 20% and affect healthcare and medication services for over 32,000 of our most vulnerable who rely on this program. It places fewer healthcare resources where they are most needed: to support the work of our doctors, clinics, and GMH, our COVID-designated hospital.
We need more investment in healthcare, not less; now is not the time to shortchange healthcare for those who need it most. Every budget is about choices, and that choice is reckless and wrong.
BUDGET NOT BALANCED
BUDGET BASICS #3
YOU CAN’T USE THE SAME REVENUE TWICE
Bill 282-35: As a means to make up for funding shortfalls in FY21, the budget, as passed, provides for thirty (30) continuing and carryover authorizations from prior years’ appropriations.
HARM: Continuing and carryover authorizations from prior years’ appropriations are not supported by new revenues in FY21. As a result, such authorizations will impact and weaken the cash flow in FY21, grow the deficit, and force vendors to wait longer for payments and our People to go even longer without the services they need.
The Legislature could have provided actual revenues for the budget shortfalls by adopting a reasonable but still conservative and achievable revenue level. Instead, the Legislature chose continuing authorizations which are nothing but EMPTY PROMISES.
The Legislature had to make hard choices but funding public safety, health, and other priorities with magic beans and fairy dust helps no one. Critical agencies can’t be sacrificed to fiscal hocus pocus.
BUDGET NOT BALANCED
BUDGET BASICS #4
CHECK YOUR MEDICAID MATH
BILL 282-35: The budget, as passed, for the Medicaid Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) contains an approximately $8.5 million mistake.
HARM: Bill 282-35 appropriates $3,750,000 as the local match share for Medicaid’s CHIP. The budget indicates the federal match shall be $29,795,628. This is wrong. Medicaid CHIP matching ratio for FY21 is 15% local and 85% federal. The appropriations of $3,750,000 as a 15% local match rate is $21,250,000, not $29,795,628.
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