Finally! FMAP Passes House Mass Share: $506 Million

August 12, 2010

After months of debate, thousands of email pleadings, letters and phone calls, both houses of Congress have now passed the six month FMAP extension.  Following up on the Senate August 4th passage of the extension, the House gave its approval by a 247-161 vote at 3:26 p.m., this afternoon.

The extension will grant an additional $16 Billion to states whose revenue receipts have been devastated by the Great Recession that began in October of 2008 during the final months of the Bush Administration.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Massachusetts will receive $506 million in extended FMAP funds. The extended funds will be for January 2011 to June 2011.

Originally the House and Senate had passed a $25 Billion FMAP extension that would have brought over $750 Million to the Commonwealth, however Republican Senators, including Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown refused to allow that to become law through the use of a filibuster, preventing a final vote on the state aid package.  The GOP filibuster cost the state of Massachusetts over $250 million in lost federal assistance.  The filibuster was finally ended with the support of the two moderate Republican Senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, plus conservative Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.  The three changed their earlier votes supporting the filibuster to ending the filibuster preventing a Senate vote.  Brown voted to continue the filibuster and subsequently voted no on the FMAP extension.

Due to the late timing of the FMAP passage, Governor Deval Patrick vetoed over $400 million in FY 11 expenditures that had been funded by expected revenue from the original $750 million FMAP package.

There remains some disagreement among state leaders regarding how the incoming FMAP revenue will be distributed to state programs.  Though regarded as a political statement and not a strong position, some Massachusetts GOP legislators have suggested that the State not accept or allocate the six month extension. 

Both the Governor and the legislative leadership have expressed gratitude to Members of Congress for the six month extension, yet have not completely signaled how the funds will be distributed.  With the Governor’s veto of programs that were partially funded by the original expected $750 million FMAP package, there is no automatic provision for the incoming $506 million to be restored to those individual accounts, thus the Governor and Legislature will need to come to an agreement on how these funds will be distributed.

Options could include a special session of the legislature, supplemental budgets adopted early next year or adoption through informal sessions (though unlikely since one member could object).  There also may be some degree of executive authority in the receipt of the funds with regard to the additional education dollars that will were part of the Congressional action.

ADDP will be urging state decision makers to:

• Preserve the use of FMAP (extended Medicaid) first and foremost for health and human service programs.
• Fund the Governor’s DDS FY 2011 errata budget for Residential Services to ensure that people with developmental disabilities do not lose their homes.
• Preserve human service workforce jobs.
• Fund DDS Day/Employment Services to ensure that people with developmental disabilities do not lose their jobs or day services.