An overall state budget needs to be finished Tuesday for the legislative session to end as scheduled Friday because of a constitutionally required 72-hour “cooling off” period. The new budget will take effect with the July 1 start of the fiscal year.
Before bumping up the health and human-services issues Saturday, senators also raised questions about a House plan that would reduce what is known as a “personal needs allowance” for Medicaid-funded residents of nursing homes and other facilities. The allowance is an amount of money that residents are able to keep each month for needs such as clothes, haircuts and toiletries.
House Health Care Appropriations Chairman Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, said longstanding state law set the personal-needs allowance at $35 a month. But during the past three years, lawmakers have increased it to $105 a month.
The House has proposed setting the amount at $70 a month, while Senate budget negotiators want to keep it at $105.
Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said it has been a priority of the Senate to make sure people in nursing homes have money for personal needs. But Brodeur said the $70-a-month amount would still be the seventh-highest in the country.
