Nation IN BRIEF : MASSACHUSETTS : Medicaid Funds Avert Shutdown

A Medicaid windfall totaling nearly half a billion dollars, found by a state employee, has made a planned shutdown of state government for a week unnecessary, Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld said. Weld, who has imposed worker furloughs and proposed cuts in welfare and revenue sharing programs in an effort to balance the budget, had planned to shut down the government for the last week of June. But a state employee, combing new rules in the federal Medicaid health care program, found that the state was owed $489 million in reimbursements--enough to balance the fiscal 1991 budget. The employee was given a $10,000 reward.