Sen. Steve Ogden, the Bryan Republican who's the Senate's chief budget writer, said Thursday that money collected from a fee on electricity bills should possibly be used to draw down more federal matching money, perhaps in the state-federal Medicaid health insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled.
The state budget passed by the House runs about $6 billion short of current funding, if you count loss of temporarily higher federal match money, recommended provider fee cuts and failure to add money for inflation and growth in use of services and enrollment. The budget shaping up in the Senate also shorts Medicaid, but not as much.
Ogden, as his panel approved last-minute items for regulatory agencies such as the Public Utility Commission, noted that the Senate budget wouldn't spend any of the fees collected on electric bills in the deregulated portions of the state for low-income ratepayer discounts. The discounts, which the GOP-controlled Legislature has shaved in size and scope in recent years, are known as the "system benefit fund." He said the House budget would spend $170 million over the next two years. Last weekend, as we blogged, a conservative House member took a pass at raiding some of the money, then backed off.
If new money for discounts is "zeroed out," Ogden told colleagues, the fund's balance could be as high as $900 million by the end of the next budget cycle.
"We're probably going to have to come back and take a hard look at our policy position on this," he said, perhaps changing the 1999 electricity-deregulation law "in such a way that we can draw down federal funds ... to help match some federal-state program that we're underfunding right now."
"This is a big pot of money out there, and we've got to be smart on it," he said.
After the meeting, Ogden told reporters that he's not sure if the Legislature can rework the law authorizing the fee this session. But he confirmed that he's primarily thinking about using the fee money, if it can be freed of strings and turned into state "general revenue," as state matching money for Medicaid.
Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/04/electricity-discount-money-for.html
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