Legislative Update
Entering what may be the final week at the State House (targeted adjournment is Friday) most of bills effecting VocRehab, Vabir or other agencies that service the disabled are through both bodies and on to committees of conference. Following is a list and some budget information.
H.617 Guardianship – Passed both bodies, conference committee called for. The main issue here is to try and ameliorate the bad language around end of life and when a guardian can act without going through probate court. The good news is that both House and Senate kept language that makes it clear that involuntary commitment and involuntary medication have to go through the Chapter 18 process through family court (although there is some bad language about “voluntary commitment” that we will try to make stronger in conference so that a person under guardianship has a formal way to give voluntary assent).
H.615 and H.635, Abuse, Neglect and Juvenile Proceedings – Both have conference committees. H.635 is good, both bodies kept the small bits of language we were able to add the makes DCF consider the disability needs of both the child and the family when doing disposition plans and permanency plans. H.615 had language requiring a report about how DCF and the courts are meeting the needs of parents with disabilities which Sen Sears stripped out to use as a bargaining chip with the House. We will try to get it reinstated in conference committee.
S.271 Extending Child Support to 22 – Passed both Senate and House and the Senate concurred with the changes the House made so the bill is on its way to the governor.
H.629 – Seriously Mentally Ill offenders – Through the House but it is now in Senate Judiciary and it is doubtful there will be enough time to get this through the Senate.
S. 281 Improving end of life care and pain management across the life span – Passed third reading in the House Thursday evening. There were some last minute changes (the Attorney General’s office decided that they were not willing to take the lead on staffing the bill). One proposal that the conference committee may decide to use is to have to proposed study be staffed by legislative council. These details will have to be worked out in a conference committee.
Money for TBI – Sen. Flanagan attempted to attach the TBI fee increase to the fee bill as it sat in Senate Finance. Senate Transportation (Dick Mazza) objected strenuously and the increase was removed from the bill.
Senate Finance also put language in the Fee Bill (H.691) to institute a co-pay for prisoners’ health care. The House rejected this request by the Administration but the Senate has generally been more supportive of this idea in the past. Ed Paquin, Lila Richardson and others sent letters to Senate Appropriations asking them to strip this language from the fee bill but the committee supports the co-pay. The only hope of striking the language may be when the bill goes to conference committee.
The Budget – Conference committee (Heath, Hunt, Helm, Bartlett, Sears, Snelling) meet briefly on Friday and will meet again on Monday the 28th at 3:00. June graduation funding went from 60 in the House to 45 in the Senate. The Senate included language delineating that $2 million of global commitment designated for EPSDT and includes case management. The Senate only increased premiums for Catamount and not VHAP or other Medicaid premiums. It did, however increase premiums for the VT RX program. The sense around the building is that the House will mostly concur with the Senate changes since the Senates budget was created after the news of the 25 million deficit. There will be a lot of disagreement about the restructuring of corrections that the Senate added on the Senate floor AFTER House Institutions announced they would not seek to restructure Corrections this year.