New York State Budget: What We Know Today

New York State Budget: What we Know Today

The New York State Budget for the FY 2021-2022 is being finalized as this alert is being written. We will know the final budget terms and conditions tomorrow, April 1. However, here is what we have heard thus far will be included in the final budget bill, as it relates to home care:

  • LHCSA RFO is not going to be repealed. There have been pleas to the Legislature and the Governor to eliminate the LHCSA RFO which, as providers will recall, was issued summarily and without much provider input last year as part of MRTII’s recommendations, and before the pandemic fully took its toll on New York State. As a result of these pandemic-driven and the emphasis on home care, provider shave been lobbying to have the LHCSA RFO repealed through the budget process. Unfortunately, however, as it stands today, it appears that the State will not be removing the LHCSA RFO. Unless there are other repeals, providers will be subject to the LHCSA RFO in the next few months.
  • Fair Pay for Home Care, the bill that would raise caregivers’ base rate of compensation 112 percent and also increase the wage parity benefit for covered providers seems almost certain to become law. (We have written about the Fair Pay for Home Care proposal in our previous alert, if you need a refresher on what the law would entail). Unfortunately, the Legislature has only appropriated funding for the associated increases to the base rate and wage parity for one year. Thus, providers will be required to fight – as they usually do – to ensure that they receive from MLTCs and the State adequate funding for these wage increases. As we discussed in our prior alert, while the idea behind the wage increase for home care workers is commendable, providers are all too familiar with the State’s prior well intentioned, but poorly executed, wage increases (e.g., wage parity law, minimum wage increase). Thus, providers fear that Fair Pay for Home Care might become a nightmare in application. In addition, as proposed, the Fair Pay law would take effect April 1, and providers would be required to comply with the new and increased wage and wage parity benefit rates for hours worked on April 1 and afterwards. Such a quick effective date simply does not provide sufficient time for covered providers to actually come into compliance with the wage and benefit requirements of this legislation.
  1. CDPAP RFO results will be adjusted based on a new process that the State will outline in the budget. The new process comes from the Governor’s office and is largely similar to the Senate bill, which had proposed adding nonprofits and certain long-standing fiscal intermediaries to the list of awardees. The Gottfried proposal, which we had discussed in a prior alert, would have allowed additional fiscal intermediaries to apply for the RFO and, potentially, receive an award. Also under the Gottfried proposal, non-winning fiscal intermediaries would have been allowed to continue operating “as is.” The Gottfried proposal, however, seems doomed and unlikely to make it into the State budget. In the below article, we discuss what is being proposed by the Executive as a “compromise” for non-winning fiscal intermediaries that have sought to repeal the results of the RFO.