AUGUSTA – Lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee are feeling pressure to move forward with the budget because the state’s MaineCare accounts would be empty on May 8 if no action is taken.

Republicans and Democrats say they will work together to avoid that scenario.

Last month legislators were told the program was looking at a $65 million shortfall for this fiscal year. Last Friday they were told the account would run out May 8.

“It’s real and very sobering,” said Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, who serves on the committee. “We knew there was a day coming that there wouldn’t be any more money and in order to address it, we really need to vote out a budget.”

Ryan Low, commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said the committee can authorize federal stimulus money to bridge the gap from May 8 to June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

But those stimulus funds have yet to hit state coffers.

Low said federal officials were meticulously combing through Maine’s application to ensure all requirements have been met. “We think we’ve met all the thresholds,” he said Thursday. “They said (Wednesday) it should be fairly soon.”

Chuck Gill, spokesman for Central Maine Medical Center, which would be directly affected if Maine stopped paying its MaineCare bills, said the hospital was concerned about the looming deadline and the state’s failure to make the back payments it promised about a month ago.

“First, we were told on March 17 during a press conference with the governor that the first hospital settlement payments would be imminent, and we have not been paid yet,” Gill said.

The state owes millions of dollars to Maine hospitals for MaineCare services rendered in 2005.

“And on May 8th they may not be able to pay hospitals, physicians, nursing homes and other providers,” Gill said. “That would turn the current crisis into a major crises and it would affect the entire economy here in Maine.”

Low said the hospitals would get their promised payment once the stimulus money becomes available.

State Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, said there are several tools available to the committee to prevent the state’s MaineCare account from bottoming out. “We’ll do everything we can to keep that from happening,” he said.

One option would be to appropriate money from elsewhere in the Department of Health and Human Services budget. Another would be to separate that portion of the budget from the overall bill to pass something dealing with the immediate problem, Millett said.

“The third option is to get to work and finish the whole thing,” Millett said. “That’s the most ambitious plan, but it’s still in play.”

Still lingering before lawmakers is the reality that the budget gap they will have to close will be larger than was projected, and the final numbers aren’t yet available.

Grant Pennoyer, director of the Office of Fiscal and Program Review, told legislative leaders it would be at least until the end of next week before that could happen.

“We will probably have a good sense of how the individual income tax went by then and that will be a critical factor,” he said.

Copy the Story Link