NH State Budget - Cuts Continue...
By: Wendy Thomas, The New Hampshire Challenge Staff Reporter

Due to the Union’s rejection of a furlough agreement the decision was made by Governor Lynch to proceed with state government layoffs. State commissioners have worked hard to minimize the number of layoffs necessary to achieve the $25 million needed in savings. According to Lynch, the commissioners have also developed careful plans to ensure as little impact as possible on direct services.

"Our state employees are hard-working people who truly care about the citizens they serve. I am deeply disappointed that we were not able to implement furloughs instead of layoffs. As we move forward with managing the budget in these difficult times, we will continue to do everything we can to avoid further layoffs." Stated Lynch in an email.

The Department of Health and Human Services share of this reduction is $8.783 million.

In response to the budget cuts, Commissioner of New Hampshire Health and Human Services Nick Toumpas started layoff notifications for the agency. In total, by October 30th, the Department laid off, reassigned, or demoted 150 staff and eliminated funding for a number of vacant positions.

"We looked at programs and we eliminated or consolidated functions or business processes. There were no easy answers and no good decisions. We tried to minimize the impacts on our clients." Toumpas said. "If it were easy to do a bunch of budget reductions they would have been done a long time ago."

"The economy is showing signs of coming out of the recession but the lagging factor is jobs. With an unemployment rate around 7% the bottom line is that we have a number of people who have been long term unemployed. The longer people are unemployed the more strain it puts on our department" said Toumpas who pointed out that Medicaid was up 12%, Foodstamps 39% and TANF (temporary assistance for needy families) up 20% from last year.

Toumpas stated that it would be a difficult personal and professional challenge for all whether directly impacted or not. "There are no good options, we faced when planning for this, but the Department’s management team worked together to develop a plan that attempts to minimize the impact on those we served" he wrote in an email to colleagues on October 13.

"Last month we served over 142,000 NH citizens directly through our programs. That number has continued to increase. So as painful as this is for our colleagues and friends here at the Department, we cannot ever forget what it is we are here to do." Toumpas said.

Dennis Powers who heads the Community Support Network, an umbrella organization for the 10 area agencies that serve people with developmental disabilities said that the area agencies, because they are privately and non-profit run will not be directly affected by the State budget cuts.

Powers explained "The biggest impact is on the Psychiatric unit at New Hampshire Hospital which is a 12 unit short tem assessment treatment facility for people with Acquired Brain Disorder (ABD) and developmental disabilities. The agencies will be indirectly affected when someone goes into crisis and the services are no longer available."

"The unit was closed down and the patients in the hospital were transferred to other units. When people went into crisis we would have sent them to the unit in Worcester Massachusetts but that unit was closed in the Massachusetts budge cuts which have left a real void. There is currently no place in New England to serve people with these complex issues. The State is currently trying to figure this out and where to place patients with these needs."

While the numbers are alarming, as a family member of a person with a disability or one who has a disability just what exactly do all of these budget cuts mean for you? Should you be concerned and will the budget cuts affect services for which you are eligible?

The frank and honest answer is that no one seems to know. "We are in a wait and see situation" said Brian Collins, Area Agency Region 9, Executive Director. "The overall effect of these cuts has not been fully flushed out."

"The ten area agencies which provide services for people with developmental disabilities haven’t felt the first wave of these cuts party because we are the beneficiaries of the wait list funds. I don’t want to be an alarmist but I am a realist." He said.

"People who may be wait listed for subsidies for child care may be affected. Those who are working and paying bills, the child care subsidies could go away and unravel. Look, things are bad and the economy is not great." Collins added.

For now, though, it looks like services will proceed as they normally do. Gorden Allen, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities explained "The stimulus money that we got had some nice strings attached in that you couldn’t change the eligibility. You still can’t and that continues until December 2010.

"The legislation got the wait list money out for this year. It was a miracle they got it out. Each area agency gets a block of that money. I have concerns about next year though. We are on pins and needles waiting for a turn around, when the economy is not getting much better; people are inclined to make cuts. " Said Allen.

There is also concern about what happens to the $110 million dollar revenue hole due to a lawsuit against the medical providers’ liability insurance trust fund. That case is currently in the New Hampshire Supreme court, another wait and see situation. "We don’t really know what is going to happen, said Powers, but any cuts at the State level worry us as most of our funding comes from the state. Around 40% of our budget comes from the state and any cuts can affect families in a significant way."