06/08/2023

Senate Unveils Budget Sub-Bill; Join next Advocacy in Action call

On Tuesday, the Ohio Senate unveiled its sub bill for the State Operating Budget in a press conference facilitated by Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) and Senate Finance Chair Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls). The Senate now has less than a week to assemble an omnibus amendment before reporting the bill out of Committee on Wednesday, June 14, and then a full vote by the Senate on Thursday, June 15.

Notably, the Senate stripped out many earmarks from the bill, opting instead to fund the All-Ohio fund to the tune of $1 billion, also creating a $1 billion “Strategic Community Investment” fund to support local projects.  

Nursing facilities

• The Senate proposal would rebase the reimbursement rate for SFY 2024 using 2022 cost report data, splitting those funds with 60 percent going into quality and 40 percent into the base rate, and setting up a schedule of rebasing every two years.
• The House-proposed private room payment add-on was NOT included in the bill. This removes $82 million from the House budget that was earmarked to fund the add-on.
  
• The Senate sub bill maintains the pricing threshold at the 25th percentile (the House sub bill increased it to the 50th percentile, at a cost of $339 million per year).
  
• The proposal does not include the House-proposed penalty for nursing homes with low occupancy. The House bill would have deducted 5% of the aggregate Medicaid daily rate for providers with occupancy lower than 65%.
• The proposal changes the House-proposed occupancy measure to award 2.5 points for those providers with 75-80 percent occupancy, 5 points for 80-85 percent occupancy, and 7.5 points for those with higher than 85 percent occupancy. (House had awarded a straight 7.5 points for any nursing facility over 75% occupancy).

Home- and Community-based Services

• The House-proposed payment levels for assisted living waiver, memory care and critical access payments were preserved.
• The language requiring regular evaluation and update to the assisted living reimbursement rates was removed.   
• House-proposed funding levels for the direct care workforce in home care waivers and programs (estimated to support a wage of $17 in SFY 2024 and $18 in SFY 2025) were maintained.
• The $40 million in Healthy Aging grants were not included.
• The Senate sub bill includes a new requirement that the administration study direct care worker wages across the HCBS waivers and services.

Housing

• The low-income housing tax credit program proposed by the Governor and maintained by the House was removed from the Senate sub bill.
• Corrective language that would standardize the valuation of subsidized housing for property tax purposes was removed.
• The Senate bill removes language that would raise the cap on historic property rehabilitation tax credits, and also prohibits historic rehabilitation credits from being awarded to any federally subsidized residential property.
• The Senate bill requires the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to create an inventory / report of all federally subsidized rental property in the state for county auditors.
• The Senate bill proposed to move the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to become a part of the Department of Development. 

LeadingAge Ohio is preparing testimony for the Senate Finance Committee in response to the sub bill and will continue to evaluate the bill for its impact on long-term services and supports. Members are encouraged to join the Advocacy in Action call on Monday at 10:00AM for a complete review of the bill. Questions may be directed to Susan Wallace at swallace@leadingageohio.org.