State health department budget prioritization during fiscal shortfall

¶ … Health Department Budget Cut during the Revenue Shortfall

Yersey Yersinian, State Governor

FROM: Curtis Healy, Health Commissioner

Cutting Budgets during the Times of Revenue Shortfall

Our current fiscal budget has revealed that we have already run short of our project revenue and the issue requires immediate attention. In the present fiscal year, we are facing challenges of raising tax revenue for the projected fiscal year. By consequence, the tax revenue projected for the fiscal year between July and June is short of $30 Million. While the fiscal year has nearly run into half, the shortfall could increase by 7% if immediately solution has not been implemented to arrest the situation. The immediate problem that we are facing is the strategy we could adopt to raise up to $60 Million within six months. The solution is not to raise the government fees or taxes because implementing these policies will make us contradicting our promises that we have made few years ago. While an increase in the government borrowing may be politically feasible, however, we use this tool to criticize our predecessors and this option will not be appropriate as the best option. The only solution to raise the funds is to cut programs . We need to critically evaluate all the programs by choosing the programs that are less important and remove them from the list of all our funded program. The strategy will assist us to cut our expenses in order to effectively implement the remaining programs.

Proposed Specific Budget Reductions

I suggest that we need to reduce the expenses of the WIC (Women, Infants, Children) program. The state spends approximately $2 million on the program, and the program is being supported by the state, thus, we will need to reduce expenses of the WIC program. Additionally, I suggest that we reduce the utility expenses that include expenses on equipment, furniture, and supplies. We will save approximately $2 Million from the cutting of expenses on this programs. Moreover, we should cut the expenses of approximately $100,000 spent on the state detective hired to detect fraud in the health department. More importantly, we need to cut our nursing and hospital home inspection program expenses. The expenditure on this program is approximately $4 million and only $500,000 is recovered from the program. Moreover, the program on food safety and inspection regulation is supported by the state revenue. We need to reduce our expenses on this program to raise savings.

Moreover, we will need to cut expenses on the health promotion and education program, which is approximately $3 million from the state tax revenue expenses. After cutting all these expenses, we are required to implement a policy to cut $1,415,000 out of the original $1.5 million. We also need to cut $150,000 of the marketing program, which is the expenditure on the state tax revenue. Moreover, we will need to cut the expenses of the miscellaneous program which is approximately $650,000. Moreover, we will need to cut the "First Lady's State Autism Project" expenses (Grum, 2014 p 39). After we have adjusted the expenses on budget program, we will be left with the $15,310,000. However, we can still get $2 million out of the vulnerable budget.

We can also reduce the expenses on a red tape. For example we could reduce expenses on mandatory inspection, outside consultancy and lodging fees. All these cut can assist us to save about $70,000. Moreover, we can save $20,000 by cutting expenses on furniture and equipment delay. We will realize $90,000 from this option. We could also save $300,000 by reducing the expenses on health promotion program. It is essential to realize that we are spending a lot on health promotion program, which include the billboard, TV promotion, anti-tobacco promotion as well as other promotions. We could also save $10,000 by reducing expenses on food safety inspection program. More importantly, we could record a saving of $250,000 by canceling new expenses on GIS (Geographical Information System) equipment. We will also need to "terminate migrant health clinic marketing program," this will make us realizing a saving of $75,000. (Grum, 2014 p 39). We could also realize additional saving of $60,000 by deleting the primary care program and communicable disease program. We should be able to realize $40,000 saving by terminating the " education program for training rural dental hygienists." (Grum,2014 p 42).

Identification of Possible Consequences

We will enjoy several benefits from implementing the policies of cutting the expenses of the least important programs in the state. First, we will be able to meet out proposed budget for state health department, which will assist us implementing the required health program to meet the people's health needs. Moreover, the policy will assist us to implement high quality health program in the state. It is critical to understand that health is wealth. Cutting all unnecessary expenses will assist us to meet people health needs which will make the government to command good image.

Conclusion

The memo recommends different policy options that the government should employ in order to cut expenses of the state health department to meet the proposed budget for the fiscal year. The memo recommends that the government should cut the WIC expenses to save $2 million. Moreover, the memo suggests that the government should cut expenses on the health promotion program to save $3 million. We should also cut expenses on marketing program to save $150,000. All these savings will assist us to implement high quality health program in the state.

Reference

Grum, G.E.(2014). State Health Department Cutting Budgets in Times of Revenue Shortfall. University of Virginia. Wise.