The state health department plans to eliminate a healthy living grant program, as well as delay a new software purchase and reduce youth smoking prevention funds as part of the governor’s attempt to balance next year’s state budget, documents show.
Including federal match money, the cuts at the Vermont Department of Health total $2.24 million, according to the governor’s budget proposal.
The health department planned to replace its software for administering EMT licenses but now plans to put off that $100,000 cost because of the state’s $93.6 million budget shortfall, according to Paul Daley, the health department’s financial director.
The current system is adequate and expected to function for several more years but is labor-intensive and inefficient, Daley said.
The department is also set to cut the educational loan repayment program by $700,000, according to the governor’s budget proposal. That program aims to encourage people to become primary care doctors, nurses and nurse educators.
The program is funded by the state and administered by the University of Vermont College of Medicine Area Health Education Centers Program, Daley said.
The health department has also proposed to reduce the money spent on tobacco prevention.
The overall tobacco control program is about $3.9 million, Daley said. The current year budget includes $2.4 million in tobacco master settlement agreement money, $1.2 million in federal grants and $300,000 in Medicaid money.
The governor’s budget proposal cuts $45,000 of that Medicaid Global Commitment money.
“The result of this cut, barring any offsetting increase in federal grant funding, will be a slight reduction in funding available for youth tobacco use prevention,” Daley said in an email.
The health department also plans to eliminate a program known as CHAMPPS, which gives grants to promote health, for a savings of $300,000.
The Coordinated Healthy Activity, Motivation and Prevention Program’s objective is to award grants that promote long term, sustainable changes in communities that increase physical activity, improve nutrition and reduce the incidence of chronic disease.
CHAMPPS grantees are in the first year of a two-year funding cycle, so eliminating the program would leave many projects incomplete, according to the health department.
The department’s proposed budget includes an additional $5 million in Medicaid Global Commitment funding for substance abuse treatment.
Meanwhile, the budget request for residential addiction treatment is lower next year than for FY2015.
That is not so much a cut as an adjusted estimate of how much residential treatment will be utilized, the department said. The state is trying to move patients toward outpatient, rather than residential treatment.
In FY2014 the state spent $8.9 million on residential treatment. The department estimates it will spend $9.7 million this year and $9.9 million in FY2016, Daley said.
