Medicaid dominates budget
Monday, February 27th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
Pete DeLea
Star Staff Writer
Cleveland County needs new police cars and library books, more employees and better maintained buildings. But they will all have to wait because of the financial strains Medicaid is causing, said County Manager David Dear.
“The Medicaid program is growing so rapidly the counties don’t have enough revenue sources to keep up with it,” said Dear. “We’re putting all of our resources into Medicaid and we’re not able to address the other issues in the county.”
North Carolina is the only state that requires counties to pay a fixed percentage (15 percent) of the state’s Medicaid costs.
Medicaid costs consumed eight percent of the county’s budget in 1993. In 2005, nearly 23 percent of the budget was devoted for the program, which doesn’t leave much money for county projects.
“We haven’t been able to put money in the capital projects fund in four years,” said Dear.
He said he does not see any relief coming soon and is planning on allocating $8.3 million of the fiscal 2006-07 budget towards Medicaid.
Rebecca Troutman, director of research for the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, said Medicaid is causing problems for all 100 counties. (more…)
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