Worst of cuts for children’s services may be averted

Child advocates need to be heard

House vote Thursday, May 13

The House Finance Committee has finished its work on the budget-balancing bill, SB 450. Their work avoids many of the drastic cuts which were originally being considered. As recommended by the Committee, the bill--

• Retains funding for home visiting programs
• Reduces, but does not eliminate, funding for incentive funds for juvenile diversion and child abuse prevention programs
• Maintains level funding for family resource centers
• Requires that three youth shelters remain open rather than transferring the  youth to the secure detention facility in Manchester

On the downside, the Committee proposal--

• Allows for elimination of the family intervention program that works with TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) recipients who face mental health, domestic violence and other barriers to complying with TANF rules and may thereby lose all their cash support from TANF
• Imposes a 2% rate-reduction on all programs serving abused & neglected, delinquent and CHINS youth. (this is part of a state-wide reduction for most health and social service providers)
• Requires the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce over-all contract expenses by $3M in fiscal year 2011.

For further details, go to www.cfsnh.org and click on the link for “budget impacts on children and families”.

Closing the youth shelters, in Antrim, Bradford and Jefferson created one of the biggest discussions.  The resident population at the Sununu Youth Services Center (SYSC) has been hovering around 60 youth for a year or more in a facility built and staffed for 144. To avoid laying off staff,  the Department of Health and Human Services proposed keeping it open, and filling it with youth who are currently in shelters: runaways, CHINS, and youth who have committed a minor offense who do not need to be locked up.  All of these youth will do better in a community setting, and transferring them to what would look and feel like a locked facility would have been harmful. The move also did not make sense financially, because the children in a locked facility would not be eligible for Medicaid, thus denying the state access to millions of federal dollars to support their care.

Importantly, the Committee amendment to SB 450 includes substantial new revenue sources: an expansion of the tobacco tax, reinstatement of the estate tax, and creation of an electric generation tax. Together, these new revenues substantially reduced the need to make program cuts to balance the state budget.

What needs to be done now?
The House needs to pass SB 450 as proposed by the House Finance Committee. Failing to do so would give up the option of obtaining new revenues. Without these, the Governor would have to balance the budget only through additional, and deeper, program cuts. There is no mechanism for the Governor to obtain public comments on his executive orders before they are issued. Thus, unlike the very public process used by the Legislature in dealing with SB 450, these cuts would be made without public input which is likely to result in cuts being made without understanding their full implication.

What can you do?
Call members of the House of Representatives, urging them to support SB 450 as recommended. For members, see the attached list.

HOUSE MEMBERS FOR SB 450