The budget presentation started innocently enough. Commissioner BJ Walker submitted her goals for the budget which included:
The Governor's Office has also directed the all Departments to reduce expenditures in this year's budget by 6%, suspend all new hires, and put a moratorium on hiring, travel, vehicle purchases and equipment. All cuts are to be considered permanent. For DHR, the 6% cut will mean a reduction of $94 million to their budget. DHR prioritized the budget cuts based on the three budget cut targets submitted by the Governor's Office.
Then the presentation turned ugly. In order to meet the targets mandated by the Governor, direct services to consumers will be cut or eliminated, staff support reduced, providers hit by draconian rate reductions, community partnership threatened, and standards compromised. It is hard to make cuts to a Department's budget that serves the most vulnerable people in Georgia without severe pain to those who can stand it least. Among the cuts on the table include:
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Mary Burns, Chair of the DHR Board, summed up the meeting by saying, "We have a shared grief about the budget." Her grief is minor compared to those who will be directly impacted by these cuts and the services that mean so much to their well-being.
These budget and cut proposals now go to the Governor. We hope that the Governor will weight the impact of these cuts on the most vulnerable people served by this Department and the providers and staff who sacrificially give of themselves and resources before approving implementation of this budget.
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