More funding for Medicaid, less for state’s K-12 education

By David Montgomery
Capital Journal staff
Published/Last Modified on Tuesday, Dec 08, 2009 - 01:07:20 am CST

PIERRE — Gov. Mike Rounds will propose a budget today with $50 million more spending on Medicaid and minor cuts across the rest of state government.

Rounds will unveil his budget in a speech to a joint session of the Legislature at 1 p.m. in the Capitol. The budget will use federal stimulus money to help defray a structural deficit Rounds has said in the past will be more than $100 million.

Rounds briefly discussed his budget Monday but declined to go into specifics until his address today.

David Montgomery | Capital Journal
Gov. Mike Rounds explains details of next year’s budget to reporters Monday at the Capitol.
Advertisement

“I think our job is to manage an increasing amount of mandated expenses with a significantly decreasing amount of revenues, and to do the least amount of harm to individuals that are clearly in need of services that we provide — primarily health services,” Rounds said. “That’s been our challenge. We’re taking care of the very basic needs of people who are down and out because of a national recession.”

Since December 2007, Rounds said South Dakota’s unemployment has increased by 10,000 individuals, while more than 8,000 new individuals have become eligible for Medicare.

In his budget, Rounds said three different areas related to Medicaid will cause $52.2 million more in cost to the state. Total expenditures will increase by $51.3 million, meaning the rest of state government will decrease by around $900,000.

“The total will be a decrease. It is not evenly spread across all departments because you simply can’t make that work,” Rounds said. “If you have a budget that has more federal matching funds than another, then they’re more heavily impacted if you cut a program because it’s $3 rather than $1 to the department.”

In all, Rounds said education will decrease from 51 percent of the budget to 49 percent. Human services will increase from 33 percent to 36 percent, public safety will remain steady and the rest of state government will decrease from 5 percent to 4 percent of the budget.

Budget address

Gov. Rounds will unveil his budget for the next fiscal year at 1 p.m., today at the Capitol. Follow the address online at www.sdpb.org/statehouse/index.asp.

Print this story Post A Comment

WARNING:

• Comments are not verified for accuracy nor have we verified the identity of any person’s name accompanying a comment, so please consider this as you weigh any statements made or opinions offered.

NOTE:

• Comments will not be posted if submitted in all caps, or all lower case, or do not show a reasonable attempt to follow basic rules of grammar and punctuation, nor will text-message like abbreviations be accepted, like ur for your.
• Postings must stay on the issues related to the thread and not veer off into personal comments about others. The tone of the post must be civil. For example, you can say someone’s ideas are stupid but you cannot say another poster is stupid.
• Postings must deal with matters of public concern.

Comments

8 comment(s)

To Parent wrote on Dec 24, 2009 9:21 AM:

" Wow...excellent points and some the Governor should READ!!! Also, those that do get state aid, food stamps, of TANF or medicaid or unemployment...any state or federal aid should have a drug test attached to it....I would say most that get this aid do need it but there are placed to trim in that there are those that abuse the system and are perfectly able to work...drug and alcohol test them...they test dirty...no money for you! That will save this state and country MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of dollars! "

parent wrote on Dec 16, 2009 8:27 AM:

" cont. It is a vicious cycle. We need to put more into education and wean those already on government aid off. Teach them to support themselves. Create training programs so more can work. Pay our state employees more so that they don't need to take a second job, which frees up jobs for those who need a job. As a nation we need to stop supporting those refuse to help themselves. "

Parent wrote on Dec 16, 2009 8:24 AM:

" By making cuts to education and freezing salaries, employees must make cuts somewhere themselves. Often times they will give up paying for insurance for their families, because many of them qualify for medicaid. So of course their needs to be more money in medicaid to cover the cost of cutting salaries.

Also, if you cut spending in education, you will likely lose some of the best educators to better paying states, if we don't keep the best educators our students suffer - if our students do not succeed, then we have more on welfare. "

Really wrote on Dec 9, 2009 9:15 AM:

" If we don't give state employees and schools the money we are going to need more money to in the Medicaid system of course. Without a good education and period raises we will more then likely see more people trying to get onto Medicaid. Is this how we should be looking this? "

Maybe wrote on Dec 8, 2009 6:45 PM:

" re: citizen....maybe, just maybe teachers can take a pay freeze just like state employees. It's not pleasant, but everybody should take of bite of the same sandwhich for now. If you are paid with taxpayer dollars, then that is just the nature of the beast. "

Not happy wrote on Dec 8, 2009 1:45 PM:

" Once again no raises for the State Workers! "

Hypocrite wrote on Dec 8, 2009 1:03 PM:

" What a hypocrite. Children must stay in school until they are eighteen and the schools must figure out how to handle them and educate them. Now we propose cutting your funding. Typical Republican. Fund education up front or you will pay for the uneducated and their social ills later. Wake up. "

concerned citizen wrote on Dec 8, 2009 6:55 AM:

" What is wrong with this Picture?? cut education funding???Where does the future of our young people and this state stand if it is not educating our young people and keeping good teachers. Everybody should be ashamed of this Govenor and his view on education "

WRITE A COMMENT

Use the form below to post a brief comment to this story, or respond to other readers. Please use the word count tool to assist you in keeping your remarks to 100 words or fewer.

Comments must be approved by an editor before appearing on the Web site. Editors review submitted comments periodically during the day for offensive or off-topic content before posting. Your thoughtful contribution to the online discussion is appreciated.