Is Blago righting fiscal ship?

January 8th, 2008 at 05:54pm Aaron Chambers

Don’t bet on it. 

Back in November, we reported that Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration was spending its Medicaid dollars as if there would be no tomorrow:

Meanwhile, the administration is spending its Medicaid dollars at a fever pace. Lawmakers appropriated $6.9 billion for Medicaid spending through June 30, the end of this fiscal year, said Carol Knowles, spokeswoman for state Comptroller Dan Hynes. But by Nov. 8 — roughly one-third of the way through the fiscal year — the state’s health-care agency had spent 45 percent of that money, she said.

“It has been common for that agency to run out of appropriation authority sometime in the spring,” she said. “But at the pace that the agency is going, it likely will run out earlier than ever before.”

By the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year, it turned out, the administration had killed off 37.6 percent of its annual Medicaid appropriation, according to a new report from the comptroller’s office. The comptroller’s office processes checks to state vendors.

But the comptroller’s new report also shows that the administration’s Medicaid spending appeared to slow during the second quarter, which ended Dec. 31.

However, the pace of Medicaid
grant spending slowed dramatically in the second
quarter and as a result, is up just $303 million
or 8.7% compared to the first half of last
fiscal year. Appropriations for fiscal year 2008
Medicaid grant spending of $6.894 billion are
up $345 million or 5.3% over the prior year.
Through the first half of fiscal year 2008,
53.2% of Medicaid appropriations were
expended compared to 52.0% in the first half
of last fiscal year.

In other words,  as the first half of the fiscal year closed, the administration had spent roughly 53 percent of its annual appropriation. That’s more than half, but it’s only slightly more than half. Compared to November, the fiscal prognosis doesn’t look so bad.

“I would point out that the pace of spending was quite rapid until it was made publicly known how quick the pace was occurring,” Knowles told me by phone on Tuesday. “And since that was made public, virtually the only Medicaid expenditures/requests for payments have been basically expedited payments.”

She continued, “We estimate there is about another $1 billion worth of bills over at the (administration’s public aid agency) that have not been forwarded to us.”

In other words, the administration is holding plenty of bills from health care providers and not submitting them for payment.

Entry Filed under: Illinois finance