By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
When the state legislature starts its new session this Monday, the mood will be anything but jovial. With the governor’s new budget proposal looming over their heads and well over $2 billion in cuts, lobbyists and social services will be pushing hard to keep from losing too much of their government funding.
Governor Gary Locke released his version of the two-year budget plan December 17, but it has taken organizations some time to understand what the full impact of the budget will be. Locke had previously announced that shortfalls in revenue and the effects of antitax initiatives would result in “painful” cuts.
It will now be up to the legislature to rework and approve that budget during the session that begins Monday in Olympia.
With a $2.4 billion gap between costs and revenue, Locke has proposed overturning initiatives that, among other things, raise teachers’ salaries and levels of low-income healthcare from cigarette tax revenue.
The Kline Galland Center and Jewish Family Service are two of the many agencies throughout the state that will continue to be hit by the governor’s new budget.
Approximately $215 million will be cut from social services — money that nursing homes and agencies like JFS need to maintain their quality of care.
At Jewish Family Service, Executive Director Ken Weinberg, said he has been anticipating this for some time.
“The only way to reduce expenses is to reduce staff. So it means cutting programs, and we are cutting programs,” he said. Among those to be hard hit are programs for immigrants and refugees, as well as assistance for Jews with mental disabilities.
“We are essentially the only Jewish community in the United States that has extensive programming for Jews who have mental disabilities, and we are the only community that does not receive state funds,” Weinberg said.
For its part, Kline Galland is already running lean.
“We have one accountant and two bookkeepers,” Gortler said, and the bare minimum of administrators to cover three major programs and a budget that runs into the millions.
With a shortage of nurses and other facilities staff, any reductions would sacrifice the quality of care. Since other incidentals have previously been reduced, Gortler said “there is nowhere to cut.”
Kline Galland was recently honored as one of the highest-quality care centers in the country. Two thirds of its residents receive assistance.
In the last budget cycle, the state under-reimbursed Kline Galland by about $600,000. This time around, that underpayment will increase to about $750,000, Gortler said. Compounded with double-digit increases in employee healthcare and malpractice insurance, plus rising utility prices and inflation, their budget will be squeezed much more tightly.
Kline Galland’s situation is not dire — at least not for now —because Gortler has become aggressive in direct fundraising. “At the end of the year we’ll be in the black,” said Gortler.
Fifteen years down the line, however, Gortler said that if Medicare and Medicaid levels remain the same, and private parties continue with the same proportion of payment, Kline Galland could go bankrupt.
“It’s not a happy picture,” he said.
Asking residents to pay more out of their own pockets is not a solution, Gortler said, because most would not be able to sustain it.
To increase current private-pay arrangements eats into the government reimbursements, so nursing homes end up not receiving more money to operate. Gortler said having the families and state work together to cover those costs could alleviate the painful cuts he sees over the long term.
Governor Locke, who emphasized his support for education, has no room for increasing social services. He had to make cuts for his own pet projects.
By law, the governor cannot overturn anti-tax initiatives, so raises for teachers and increased basic healthcare had to go.With insurance costs rising 13 to 14 percent each year, 59,000 members of that program would be kicked ou, Locke saidt. Many of those people cannot cover their own health insurance, and will likely turn to JFS.
Both Gortler and Weinberg said a state income tax could alleviate much of the budget shortfall, though Weinberg was pessimistic on that front.
Weinberg echoed Gortler in ensuring Washington’s citizens understand what it means to have rising healthcare costs amidst shrinking budgets. “It is important to vote in elections for candidates who support health and human services,” Weinberg said.
Jewish Family Service and Kline Galland say both the one bright spot in this mess has been the Jewish community. Giving among large donors has been maintained or even increased, and the support has been lifesaving. Neither Gortler nor Weinberg refuses to give up the fight.
“In 27 years of being at JFS the Jewish community has never let us down,” Weinberg said. “We’ve been around the block. We’ve seen worse times before and we’re still here to tell the tale.”