Legislature(1997 - 1998)
03/05/1997 09:06 AM Senate HES
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SB 100 DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN/GRANTS
Number 419
CHAIRMAN WILKEN announced that the final order of business before
the committee was SB 100 .
MARY DIVEN , with the Department of Health & Social Services,
explained that SB 100 is a technical change that would place the
grant authority for the Infant Learning Program into the
authorizing statute. This change was requested by the Department
of Law in order to have all the statutes consistent; so that the
grant authority is in the authorizing statute rather than the
general department authority to issue grants.
CHAIRMAN WILKEN requested that Ms. Diven give an example of what
SB 100 would accomplish. MARY DIVEN said that the department would
like to update the regulations making them consistent with federal
law. The regulations were last updated in 1982. The Department of
Law will not allow the regulations to be open to public comment
until this technical correction occurs. The bill will allow the
updating of regulations.
SENATOR GREEN asked what happens with the Infant Learning Program
(ILP) now. MARY DIVEN clarified that the department has general
grant authority to issue grants and the Legislature puts the funds
in the grant line. However, at this point, the department cannot
revise any regulations until this technical change is made.
SENATOR WARD asked if the current regulations were inadequate.
MARY DIVEN replied yes, the regulations were last updated over 15
years ago and the federal law has changed. Ms. Diven noted that
the statute was revised in 1992 or 1993, but the regulations need
to be revised in order to be consistent with the current statute.
In response to Senator Ward, Ms. Diven said that the regulations
are causing administrative problems and problems for local service
providers. There is a small list of eligible providers in the
existing regulations. The local providers must request waivers of
the state in order to be eligible providers. The federal statute
and regulations has a more extensive list.
Number 452
SENATOR WARD noted that Representative James has a Joint Regulatory
Task Force. He believed this would be an appropriate item for the
task force to review in order to determine that regulations that
are necessary are being created. Senator Ward did not believe that
more regulations were necessary if people were being served under
the existing regulations.
CHAIRMAN WILKEN informed the committee that he was a member of the
Joint Regulatory Task Force whose agenda is full. This bill seems
to be more of an alignment than a creation. If this bill was given
to the task force, the task force would most likely not have time
for its consideration.
ELMER LINDSTROM , Special Assistant in DHSS, agreed that SB 100 does
raise some questions because what is being done now, what has been
done in the past, and what is desired for the future is to run the
ILP as a grant program. When the need arose to update regulations
consistent with the recommendations of the regulations group, the
Department of Law said that the department did not have specific
statutory authority to make grants and therefore could not update
the regulations. The Department of Law denied such although, DHSS
has done that in the past and the Legislature has appropriated
those grant lines in the budget. Mr. Lindstrom believed that the
provisions in SB 100 were included in a bill that passed out of
Representative James' committee last year. This was also included
in an omnibus bill last year which created administrative
efficiencies and ultimately did not pass the Legislature. Mr.
Lindstrom pointed out that if this is not done, at some point the
programs would have to be implemented through a contract mechanism
which would be very inefficient.
SENATOR GREEN asked if there would be any increased cost if the
legislation did not pass. MARY DIVEN said that there was a
possibility that there would be questions from the federal funding
source because of the inconsistency of the regulations with the
federal regulations or existing statute. There has been no
indication that funding would cease, but the potential is present
if the inconsistency continues.
SENATOR GREEN asked if any exponential growth of the program could
occur once this is in statute. MARY DIVEN replied no.
Number 511
SENATOR WARD asked if anything in law would stop this grant process
and allow it to become an RFP. MARY DIVEN stated that the existing
grant regulations require nonprofits and believed that the
departments authorizing statute requires that it be nonprofits.
SENATOR WARD believed that an RFP could go out to profit
corporations in order to supply this service. Could the grant
process be issued in a public bidding process through RFPs to for-
profit corporations?
MARY DIVEN said that the existing departmental regulations do not
allow such nor do the ILP regulations.
ELMER LINDSTROM offered to provide that information to Senator
Ward.
In response to Chairman Wilken, MARY DIVEN specified that the ILP
served children ages zero to three.
GIGI PILCHER , parent, informed the committee that she was the
mother of six children two of which are disabled/developmentally
disabled children. Ms. Pilcher urged the passage of SB 100 in
order to comply with federal legislation and continue to serve
disabled children.
SENATOR GREEN moved to report SB 100 out of committee with
individual recommendations and accompanying fiscal notes. Without
objection, it was so ordered.
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