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.