Welcome Letter
(PDF)
- from Jennie Deese, GGS President
Budget Update
GOVERNOR’S FY 2010 AMENDED and
FY 2011 BUDGETS
The Governor’s budgets were formally submitted
to the
state legislature on Friday, January 15th. The
Amended 2010 (Supplemental) budget totals
$17.4 billion, down from the $18.6 billion that was agreed to last
year. The FY 2011 budget, which takes effect
July 1, has an estimated total of $18.2 billion.
As
expected, both the Amended FY 2010 and FY 2011 budget
recommendations were infused with cuts to aging programs. In
addition to employee furloughs statewide, the Governor is proposing
to reduce Aging programs in FY 2010 and FY 2011 which include
reducing funds for contracts to Alzheimer respite services
($225,000), Center for Visually Impaired ($177,859), Mobile Daycare
($36,228), Haralson County Senior Center ($15,000),
Kinship Care
($478,275), Senior Legal Hotline ($259,669), Naturally Occurring
Retirement Communities
($70,000), Navigator Training ($70,000), non-Medicaid Home and
Community Based
respite services ($1,376,718) Senior Connections in
DeKalb County
($20,000) and reflecting administrative savings in the Money Follows
the Person demonstration project ($52,171 in FY 2010 and $116,935 in
FY 20110). The Governor also proposes discontinuing funding for the
Naturally Occurring
Retirement Communities ($75,000), replacing state funds in
the Adult Protective
Services [APS] ($611,520) and
Long Term Care Ombudsman [LTCO] ($1,000,000) programs with
Nursing Home Civil Monetary Penalties collected by the Department of
Community Health, replacing state funds with anticipated
Targeted
Case Management revenue ($400,000) and reducing funds for the
Council on Aging Georgia for a Lifetime Project 2020 ($4,264).
As a result of the
declining state revenues, aging advocates were anticipating many of
the cuts proposed by the Governor but are still saddened that after
10 years of implementation of productive aging programs, many have
been dismantled. During this session advocates will impress upon
the Legislature
the extreme importance of the aging programs to prevent any more
dismantling that will lead to increased demands on the state’s
Medicaid and
long-term care systems. Legislators need to be aware that
many programs are being shored up by stimulus funding which will end
in September. Unless the state increases its state funding to
previous amounts, programs like the Community Care Services Program
(CCSP) will stand to lose over $11 million. Advocates will also
move forward with lobbying the legislature on behalf of CO-AGE’s
budget priorities of maintaining funding for CCSP, HCBS, and funding
for the State Triad. We will continue to make budget updates for you
to contact your legislators on key budget items.
We urge you to
go to the DHR website at this link:
http://www.dhr.state.ga.us/portal/site/DHS/
Scroll down
until you see this section and click on Email comments.
View DHS Budgets for FY2010 and FY2011
The Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) has made its
amended fiscal year 2010 budget and its proposed budget for fiscal
year 2011 available on this web site. Click on the link below to
access and comment on the budgets.
Email comments
View Budget presentation
