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NH Child Advocacy Network
Children’s Budget Watch #4 |
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What’s in and out of
Spec. Session HB 1
(as introduced)
Program Area |
Impact |
Reduction in original amendment to SB 450 for State FY 2011 |
Changes proposed by Finance |
Child care assistance |
In addition to a waiting list of some 2000 children, recent changes to how the amount of state assistance is paid led to huge increases to families with more than one child: as much as $200/week increase in the parents’ share. |
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Adds $2.7M to return to the previous method of calculating the parents’ share for families with more than one child. |
Diversion incentive funds targeted at reducing child abuse and neglect and juvenile delinquency. |
These funds have supported a variety of parent education, family support and juvenile diversion programs. |
$1.5M
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Retains incentive funds, but reduced to 3% of placement costs. Original budget: $2.3M;
Proposed: $1.5M |
Eliminate funding for family resource centers |
Family Resource Centers will return to having to depend on project-specific grants for each of their programs, losing these funds which supported general operating expenses. |
$120,000 |
Committee amendment leaves funding as budgeted at $10,000/center |
Eliminate family intervention contract from the Division of Family Assistance |
Families which now have help in overcoming barriers such as domestic violence, substance abuse and mental illness will lose the supports that help them to comply with TANF rules. Without them, many of them will lose TANF support and have to rely solely on town and city welfare. |
$627,000 |
Program eliminated as of June 30, 2010 |
Eliminate funding for 3 youth shelters |
CHINS, delinquents and abused/neglected youth now placed in one of 3 shelters around the state will be placed at the Sununu Youth Services Center (formerly YDC) in Manchester. |
$4.1M |
Requires shelters to remain open. |
Future of Sununu Youth Services Center, etc. |
Youth from shelters and other community based facilities to be moved to SYSC. |
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Study committee established to make recommendations on options for use of the populations of the youth development center, the state prison for women and the Shea farm transitional housing unit. |
Philbrook Center |
Philbrook Center closed, children moved to NH Hospital |
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Philbrook Center closed, children moved to F unit at NH Hospital |
2% rate cut for agencies providing court-ordered services for DCYF and Juvenile Justice Services |
Service providers that have seen little or no rate increase in 4 years, will have to maintain services at reimbursement rates that are in many cases the same as they received in 2006, despite increases in costs, especially health insurance for their staffs. |
$947,000
(total federal and state funds) |
Rate cut imposed as of July 1, 2010. |
Eliminate Home Visiting |
About 1000 women served by 12 agencies throughout the state will lose their home visitor, likely resulting in increases in use of NICU and child abuse or neglect |
$500,000 |
Requirement to fund home visiting is maintained. |
Reduce alcohol funding and transfer control of Alcohol Commission funds to DHHS |
Instead of a multi-disciplinary Commission including representatives from throughout state government, control of even these reduced funds will be transferred to one state department. |
$138,000 (total funds)
plus $120,000 taken to replace GF for Family Resource Centers in 2010 |
Funding reduced by $78,000; retains
authority of Commission. |
“Back of the budget cut to HHS” |
This requires the Department of Health & Human Services to reduce over-all spending by a set amount, without specifying where the cuts will come from. |
$19,559,231 |
$1,016,900
(The total reduction required reduced by $18M) |
PRIOR ACTIONS
Budget Cuts |
Impacts on Children |
Needed to stabilize * |
Education |
The newly created waiting list for child care assistance has grown in four months to include 1000 children and is anticipated to grow at a rate of over 300 children a month.
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Some families unable to afford quality childcare must resort to inadequate, lower quality care; adults will not be able to pursue work outside the home. Increased caseloads have led DHHS to decrease the reimbursement rate it pays for child care, shifting the cost to families. |
$8 mill |
State education aid has been compromised, with reductions in general fund support for adequacy, building aid, CAT aid and changes in school retirement funding.
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Most of these costs will be passed on to local taxpayers, who are increasingly unable to meet the educational needs of NH’s children.
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$8 mill |
Safety & Well-Being |
Some 4,500 extremely troubled children served by DCYF and DJJ currently have limited access to residential care and shorter periods of in-home support services because of a 25% reduction in appropriations. |
Lack of services and supports for these adolescents will have impact on their ability to complete high school, become productive adult citizens, and increase the likelihood of many going into the adult correctional system. |
$5 mill |
Economic Security |
TANF emergency assistance was reduced by half, thereby shifting costs to local welfare offices. By the end of SFY 2011 there is projected to be a $4M deficit based on current caseloads.
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The TANF deficit threatens important supports, basic grants and state contracts with DHHS, including employment and training, assessment and family support for families facing sanctions, and home visiting. |
$480 |
Health & Wellness |
Childhood lead staff were slashed by 50% leaving only 1 inspector for the entire state. DHHS will prioritize those children with the highest blood-lead levels for attention.
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Children are more likely to suffer persistent developmental delays, learning disabilities and behavioral problems and property owners will not receive early notification of problems so they can be addressed before a child is harmed.
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| Requests for mental health services through Medicaid have increased 13% in 3 three months; and at the same time appropriations were reduced by $2 m. |
The stress of homelessness, family dysfunction, mental illness, and other negative effects of the economy will have long-term consequences for children’s well-being.
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$4 mill |
| Home visiting services for about 1,000 low income pregnant women and their children are threatened: despite language in HB1 that home visiting be funded in both years of the biennium, contracts have been issued for only 1 year. |
Last year, HVNH helped over 136 clients leave TANF at a savings to the state of appx. $816,000. HVNH saves Medicaid an average of $400,000 for each baby prevented from needing neonatal intensive care. (only 1% of the these at risk pregnancies resulted in a NICU stay.)
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| HealthyKids faces challenges as the caseload mix between Gold & Silver varies from projections, the HealthyKids contract was underfunded by over $3M for the biennium and Federal mandates under CHIPRA are unfunded. |
NH HealthyKids and DHHS staff continue discussions about strategies that may need to be implemented; increased premiums and/or caps on enrollment in Silver are possible. |
$2.3 mill |
| Family planning funding was reduced by just over $100,000 a year, which, added to an already underfunded program, will result in a reduction of family planning sites and decreased individuals served. |
Because of the recession, more women want to avoid unintended pregnancies more than ever, but these women in crisis are turning to family planning agencies that are themselves in crisis. |
$100k |
| Alcohol and drug prevention and treatment funding was level funded, but at a substantially reduced amount from that originally appropriated in 2007. |
Children suffering with or at risk of developing substance use disorders have less access to treatment services and prevention programs because services and programs have closed or been scaled back due to DCYF/DJJS reductions in residential services and reductions in funding the alcohol fund and the incentive funds. |
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* This is an estimate by NH CAN members of the amount of funds necessary to avoid disruptions to the basic infrastructure needed to provide the services to children and families. The amount would not necessarily result in providing the same degree or level of services to children as existed prior to the 2010/2011 budget.
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