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S
easons Greetings
From the Officers and Staff of CCAP
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CCAP 2016 PRIORITIES YEAR-END STATUS REPORT
CCAP members identified a total of five priority legislative and regulatory issues for 2016. This end-of-year status report is presented in priority order, as established by CCAP members.
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Commonwealth Budget and Human Services Funding
After being a county priority for several years, legislation expanding the county Human Services Block Grant program to all willing and capable counties passed both chambers in the final voting days of the 2015-2016 legislative session and was signed into law as Act 153 of 2016 by Gov. Wolf. Originally passing the Senate in June of this year, Senate Bill 613 the House Health Committee adopted an agreed-to amendment between the Association and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services to resolve several administrative concerns. As amended, Act 153 allows for the voluntary expansion of the Block Grant program to all 67 counties, and also provides further criteria for county participation as well as streamlined processes. More details are available on CCAP's Legislative Action Center.
With regard to the state budget, on July 11 the General Appropriations bill for FY 2016-2017 became law without Gov. Wolf's signature. The 2016-2017 fiscal year did not repeat the previous fiscal year's pattern, where a nine-month budget impasse affected many of the human services programs provided by counties, placing a programming and financial burden on them as state funds were delayed. As a result of that impasse, CCAP members included in their 2016 priority an insistence that this situation could not happen again. CCAP surveyed counties through staff interviews to collect details on county impacts of the FY 2015-2016 budget impasse to share with the media and the General Assembly. The report of the impacts was released to CCAP members and to the media in early June and made available on the CCAP's Legislative Action Center web page.
While the 2016-2017 fiscal year did not produce a budget impasse, the $31.6 billion budget still fell short of county needs, particularly a failure to include any restoration of the ten percent aggregate cut to seven human services line items from the FY 2012-2013 budget, as had been proposed in the Governor's initial budget address. County child welfare was the only area of human services funding that received an increase in FY 2016-2017, with funding growing by roughly $33 million. Still, the enacted budget maintained that program's rebalancing initiative by shifting a full quarter of funds into the next fiscal year (FY 2017-2018), although language adopted earlier in the Fiscal Code allows the Department of Human Services (DHS) to issue certified funding for needs-based budgeting and provides for the disbursement of fourth quarter funds the following July, regardless of a finalized budget.
Other enacted legislation included amendments to the Human Services Code in Act 76 of 2016, which fulfilled other county priorities such as the phase-out of the requirement that county nursing homes pay ten percent of the non-federal cost of services for Medicaid residents in their nursing homes, known as the "county share," concurrent with the implementation of Community HealthChoices, or no later than Jan. 1, 2019. The Act also included language to require DHS to suspend, rather than terminate, Medicaid benefits to an inmate, another long-term county priority that allows for more effective transition between jail and the community. While implementation is still pending, better outcomes for inmates are expected to be seen quickly.
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Revenue Opportunities/Tax Fairness
In addition to this priority's traditional call for local taxing options for counties, in 2016 CCAP also included a focus on reforms in the property tax assessment system. The Assessment and Taxation Committee met in late May to do a comprehensive review of the various legislative proposals that have been introduced in the past several decades related to local government taxing options, and to determine policy and strategy moving forward. In addition, the Local Government Commission has created a working group with CCAP and the Assessors Association of Pennsylvania (AAP) to move forward in several areas, including development of an operations manual for countywide reassessment, standards for contracting for assessment services, and development of a county self-evaluation tool to assist counties in determining their need for a countywide reassessment.
On the revenue options side, several pieces of legislation were reintroduced in the 2015-2016 session to provide local taxing options for counties, although none received consideration during this session, and so will have to be reintroduced in the 2017-2018 session.
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Comprehensive Behavioral Health Reform
The Association formed a Comprehensive Behavioral Health Reform Task Force in 2016 to delve deeply into the causes of the growing problem of inmates with serious mental illness and substance abuse issues, including a focus on special populations such as veterans, women and juveniles, and to study the use of crisis intervention, pretrial services, risk assessment, and non-money bail options. A "dash-board" was developed in the early stages of the Task Force process to direct the committee discussions and to record the recommendations. The matrix includes a comprehensive set of goals arrayed beside identified barriers and strategies for achieving results.
The Task Force presented its report during the business session at the CCAP Annual Conference on Aug. 9, and conducted a breakout session to familiarize members with the report and to share the findings. The Task Force was also extended indefinitely by the CCAP Board, following the suggestion in the report findings that the focus now turns toward helping counties develop their own strategies, and implementing a communications and education strategy.
Task Force members are reaching out to stakeholders directly, sharing the report and seeking collaboration. Educational sessions will include topic-specific webinars over the next several months to prepare counties to take on local planning, augmented by regional educational opportunities planned for 2017.
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County Financial Match for Children and Youth
System reforms have brought increased and timely attention to child abuse prevention and treatment, yet the new responsibilities placed on counties from the nearly 30 new laws further highlight the critical need to address funding challenges facing the system. At the request of CCAP and its affiliate Pennsylvania Children and Youth Administrators Association (PCYA) for public hearings involving counties, law enforcement, medical professionals, school personnel and the Department of Human Services regarding their experiences, successes and difficulties, the House Children and Youth Committee held an April hearing on child welfare workforce retention. Dauphin County Commissioner and CCAP Human Services Chair George Hartwick and PCYA Executive Director Brian Bornman testified, as did several caseworkers and other stakeholders. Both Hartwick and Bornman discussed the growth in caseloads as a result of the new laws, frustrations with Child Welfare Information Solution (CWIS), and the need for additional funding to meet the increased demands. Their testimony can be found at www.pacounties.org by clicking on Government Relations, then Testimony and Advocacy.
The Committee held an additional hearing in April 16 on training and academic career paths for caseworkers, and in the fall, brought stakeholders in for a hearing on the impact of the opioid epidemic on children. Kim Rogers, Administrator for Washington County Children and Youth Services, testified on behalf of PCYA, explaining how counties are affected by the opioid crisis, and how it is driving placements and putting additional strains on limited resources.
Relatedly, in mid-May Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a report on inadequacies in the Commonwealth's ChildLine reporting service, making recommendations on staffing and funding. CCAP and PCYA used the opportunity of the timing of the report to issue a media release linking the flood of calls into ChildLine with the inequity of funding increases provided for that service compared to the significant increases in actual service provision at the county level. In September, the Department of Human Services announced improvements in the reduction of deflected or abandoned calls coming into ChildLine, prompting a subsequent response from CCAP and PCYA applauding that news, but reiterating that each of these calls translates into an investigation at the county level and that adequate staffing throughout the system is needed to close the loop.
The Auditor General has further indicated that he is working on a report, The State of the Child, that will look at the situation of CYS agencies throughout the state and how well equipped they are to perform investigations.
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Maintenance of Shale Gas Impact Fee
CCAP's priority has been maintenance of the shale gas impact fee, complete and as it is now, including the ability to grow with the industry and with the same distributions - to impacted local governments, to all counties through the Legacy Fund, and to conservation districts and state agencies. As part of his FY 2016-2017 budget proposal, Gov. Wolf again called for a severance tax as he did in his first budget address, although it differed from prior proposals in that it was designed to keep the current impact fee in place, and impose a 6.5 percent severance tax while allowing natural gas companies to use the amount paid in impact fees as a dollar-for-dollar credit against the severance tax.
While several severance tax bills were introduced during the 2015-2016 session with various rates and distribution formulas, some retaining the impact fee and others repealing it, no severance tax of any kind was included as a revenue option for the adopted FY 2016-2017 state budget.
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