Local News in Brief : Countywide : County Urged to Fight Harder for Funding

The county should not sue the state to get more money for human services programs, but it should adopt more aggressive strategies to increase funding, a task force created by the Board of Supervisors has determined.

In a report that will be submitted to the supervisors next week, the task force recommended that the county focus its efforts on one or two human services goals each year and get involved in state budget meetings as early in the fiscal year as possible to influence decisions at the earliest possible stage.

It also recommended that the county build coalitions with the private sector, particularly the health care industry, to lobby for increased funding.

The task force noted that the county depends heavily on the state to finance human services programs but that state funds for such programs have never been adequate.

For instance, the report said, the state has never made cost-of-living adjustments in the amount of money funneled to the county for care of the indigent.

“The state’s mandate to provide health services to the indigent . . . was funded at only 70 cents on the dollar” in 1983, when the responsibility of directly paying health providers for such services was shifted from the state to counties, the task force report said. “Due to growth in the program and increased medical costs, (the program) currently reimburses providers at only about 35 cents per dollar of allowed charges.”

The task force, created in April, was made up of representatives of several county departments, including the Social Services and Health Care agencies.

The task force looked at the issue of whether the county should stop operating such programs but determined that eliminating them was not a good idea at this time.