HB 1550-FN - AS INTRODUCED
2016 SESSION
\t16-2684
\t01/09
HOUSE BILL\t1550-FN
AN ACT\trelative to the duties of the ombudsman.
SPONSORS:\tRep. Ammon, Hills. 40; Rep. Osborne, Rock. 4
COMMITTEE:\tHealth, Human Services and Elderly Affairs
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ANALYSIS
\tThis bill requires the office of the ombudsman within the department of health and human services to investigate complaints relative to funding within the New Hampshire developmental disability system.
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Explanation:\tMatter added to current law appears in bold italics.
\t\tMatter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]
\t\tMatter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
\t16-2684
\t01/09
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Sixteen
AN ACT\trelative to the duties of the ombudsman.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
\t1 Office of the Ombudsman; Duties Added. Amend RSA 126-A:4, III to read as follows:
\t\tIII.(a) The department shall establish an office of the ombudsman to provide assistance to clients and employees of the department by investigating and resolving complaints regarding any matter within the jurisdiction of the department including services or assistance provided by the department or its contractors. The ombudsman's office may provide mediation or other means for informally resolving complaints. The records of the ombudsman's office shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed without the consent of the client or employee on whose behalf the complaint is made, except as may be necessary to assist the service provider or the employee's supervisor to resolve the complaint, or as required by law.
\t\t\t(b) The ombudsman shall also receive, investigate, and resolve complaints directly from residential home care providers working with or who have previously worked with developmentally disabled individuals, direct support professionals, private or public guardians, and family advocates of individuals utilizing services with designated funding within the developmental disability system. The ombudsman shall hear and resolve complaints regarding services and the corresponding individual budget and/or line items of the budget belonging to the individuals served. All complaint information shall be kept confidential. Investigations shall be conducted in private. The ombudsman shall not identify any person without his or her consent. The ombudsman shall work cooperatively with other advocacy organizations and may recommend legislation and regulatory changes which affect delivery of services to developmentally disabled persons. The ombudsman may attend service planning meetings and quarterly meetings for individuals upon invitation of either private or public guardians or residential home care providers or by the individuals served by these agencies. The ombudsman shall provide surveys to residential home care providers regarding services or lack of services or contract issues which affect both residential care providers and the individuals served. The ombudsman shall make an annual report, commencing on November15, 2015, relative to the results of such surveys to the commissioner, the speaker of the house of representatives, the president of the senate, and the governor.
\t2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t16-2684
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t11/24/15
HB 1550-FN- FISCAL NOTE
AN ACT\trelative to the duties of ombudsman.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The Department of Health and Human Services states this bill, as introduced, will have an indeterminable impact on state expenditures in FY 2017 and each year thereafter. There will be no impact on county and local expenditures, or on state, county, and local revenue.
METHODOLOGY:
The Department of Health and Human Services states this bill requires the Office of the Ombudsman (Office) to investigate complaints relative to funding within the New Hampshire developmental disabilities system. The Department states while it currently performs some of these duties, it anticipates the volume of requests for such work will increase significantly as a result of the bill. The Department also notes some of the functions allocated by the bill to the Office are currently performed by other entities within the Department. In particular, investigations into clients' rights violations are conducted by the Bureau of Developmental Services; fair hearings for individuals negatively affected by Department decisions are conducted by the Administrative Appeals Unit; and involvement in service provision and client engagement with said service provision is performed by the Office of Client and Legal Services. The Department states it is unclear whether there will be a continued need for involvement by the aforementioned entities in these areas, or whether their responsibilities, which are in some cases mandated by statute and/or administrative rule, will be transferred to the Office. In the absence of direction to relocate existing functions to the Office, the Department assumes it will need to increase Office staff by at least two positions, depending on the volume of complaints: One Associate Ombudsman to receive complaints, undertake investigation, survey providers and draft the required annual report; and one Hearings Officer to hear and determine the appropriateness of budgets for individuals with developmental disabilities. The Department projects the following estimated costs, and notes that while the Office's current positions are 38 percent federally funded and 62 percent generally funded, it is unclear whether additional positions will be funded in the same proportion.
| FY 2017 | FY 2018 | FY 2019 | FY 2020 |
Assoc. Ombudsman (LG 25) |
|
|
|
|
Salary | $48,500 | $51,600 | $53,900 | $56,200 |
Benefits | $26,700 | $28,500 | $30,300 | $32,300 |
Hearings Officer (LG 31) |
|
|
|
|
Salary | $62,700 | $67,000 | $70,200 | $73,400 |
Benefits | $29,500 | $31,600 | $33,600 | $35,700 |
|
|
|
|
|
Total: | $167,400 | $178,700 | $188,000 | $197,600 |
Finally, the Department states the use of Medicaid funds to support developmentally disabled individuals is permitted under a waiver agreement between the Department and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Varying from the terms of the waiver agreement risks disqualification of federal funds, which would result in the affected services being 100 percent generally funded. The Department states since it is unknown whether the process set forward in the bill complies with the waiver agreement, the impact on federal funding is indeterminable.