UTMB receives strong support from Legislature
The 81st Texas Legislative session — one of the most upbeat for UTMB in a decade — draws to a close at midnight tonight. All legislation directly affecting UTMB has been approved and awaits signature by Gov. Rick Perry.
Between the Legislature’s appropriations and the other funding made possible by those appropriations — $450 million from FEMA, $130 million from insurance proceeds, $200 million from The Sealy & Smith Foundation and $50 million from the Social Service Block Grant Funds — UTMB will have approximately $1.4 billion available for restoration and expansion of facilities and services in coming years.
“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Legislature and executive branch of Texas government for their affirmation of the future of UTMB,” said Dr. Ben Raimer, UTMB’s senior vice president for health policy and legislative affairs.
Senate Bill 1, the budget bill for the biennium starting Sept. 1, was approved by the Senate and House on Saturday. It contains $566.5 million in general revenue funding for UTMB, an increase of nearly $109 million over the previous biennium (including an approximately $12 million increase in the formula strategies and a $97 million increase in health care operations—$1 million of which is dedicated to reopening the UTMB McAllen women’s cancer center that was closed after Hurricane Ike).
The Supplemental Appropriations Bill (HB 4586), which also was approved this weekend and makes funding available immediately, gives UTMB an additional $150 million to match FEMA’s $450 million for Ike-related mitigation and repairs. In addition, House Bill 51—which was approved at 10:37 p.m. Sunday, just one and a half hours before the deadline for passing bills out of the House and just one day before the end of the session—authorizes $150 million in tuition revenue bonds for a new hospital building on the campus that will restore UTMB’s inpatient capacity to pre-Ike levels. This tuition revenue bond will match $200 million from The Sealy & Smith Foundation.
Appropriations also were increased for correctional managed care. The Supplemental Appropriations bill added $48 million for the current biennium; $46.5 million goes to UTMB for costs sustained during FY 2008-09. These funds will be transferred to UTMB before Aug. 31, 2009. In addition, SB 1 increased next biennium’s correctional managed care funding by $92.5 million over the previous biennium, about $77 million of which will go for UTMB’s correctional managed care program.
Additional specifics
- Instead of changing the way the state handles UTMB’s payments under the federal Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) and Upper Payment Limit (UPL) programs, the Legislature gave UTMB a $96 million general revenue increase in appropriations. This funding represents a huge commitment on the part of the Legislature to UTMB’s recovery.
- UTMB will continue to be able to draw up to $10 million per year for indigent health care from unclaimed lottery funds.
- The $150 million tuition revenue bond authorization requires the Legislative Budget Board to consider Galveston County actions that would increase local funding for indigent care when the LBB approves release of funds to pay for the bonds. (Such actions can include raising the county indigent care program income eligibility level to 100 percent of the federal poverty level, or creating a hospital district.)
- The Department of State Health Services received $3 million per year for expansion of diabetes programs in the Valley and Galveston, using UTMB’s Stark Diabetes Center model of services.
- UTMB is receiving approximately $17 million annually in new federal funding due to recent approval by the federal government of a Medicaid graduate medical education program for state-owned hospitals that had been authorized by the previous Legislature.