Relates to the distribution of grants for the health workforce retraining program

1 Co-sponsor

• Patty Ritchie

BILL NUMBER:S6991

Title of bill

An act to amend the public health law, in relation to the distribution of grants for the health workforce retraining program

Purpose

The purpose of this bill is to amend the health workforce retraining program (2807-g of the PHL) so that no less than 2.5% of the total funds available in any request for proposals is made available in any region and to allow grant recipients who have received awards for the same retraining project in multiple regions, with the approval of the commissioner, to redistribute funds between regions.

Summary of provisions

Section 1 of the bill amends subdivision 2 of Section 2807-g of the Public Health Law to provide that no less than 2.5% of the total funds available in any request for proposals under the health workforce retraining grant program is made available in any region and to allow grant recipients who have received awards for the same retraining project in multiple regions, with the approval of the commissioner, to redistribute funds between regions.

Section 2 is the effective date.

Existing law

The health workforce retraining program was enacted as part of the Health Care Reform Act (Chapter 639 of the Laws of 1996).

Justification

When the Health Workforce Retraining Program was enacted as part of the Health Care Reform Act in 1996, funding for workforce retraining was commensurate with the amount of money raised each region's health care initiative pool and this method of allocating workforce grant funding has been maintained to this date. This methodology was originally intended to assure the availability of funds across the state. As we begin the year 2012, the allocation methodology should be reviewed to examine the relationship between health care initiative pool funding and workforce retraining needs. In particular the Utica- Watertown region is disadvantaged by the methodology to the point where due to the fixed costs of running a quality training program and the limited grant funds available, it is difficult to propose a viable training program. By way of example, while the Rochester region had just a 100,000 more residents (1M vs. 900K) and 3,000 more health care FTEs than the Utica-Watertown region, Rochester's workforce retraining allocation is almost 15 times as large (Rochester receives 5.9% of available grant funds while the Utica-Watertown region receives 0.4% of available funds.)

Absent the implementation of an entirely new methodology, this legislation proposes that each region receive no less than 2.5% of funds made available under any work force retraining request for proposals to allow for the submission of more financially viable proposals.

Further, since grant applicants must apply by region this legislation would also allow grant recipients who have received grants for the same project in multiple regions to, with the permission of the commissioner, redistribute funds among the same project in different regions. Grant applicants make a good faith effort to estimate the number of individuals that will avail themselves of training opportunities and the concomitant costs, but the actual costs and training uptake can and do vary. This amendment would allow grant recipients whose training proposal has been approved by the Department to transfer funds from regions where the costs and training uptake was overestimated to regions where the costs and training uptake was underestimated. This would maximize the use of fixed training costs and increase the overall number of individuals trained.

Legislative history

New Bill.

Fiscal implications

There is no additional cost to the state.

Local fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This bill is effective immediately.