WAYNESBORO — Medicaid funds provided for Virginia school districts for school-based services could be on the chopping block under both President Trump's budget plan and the Republican health care plan.
The two proposals would cut Medicaid spending by $1.3 trillion over the next decade, putting the school-based funding in jeopardy.
In Virginia alone, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine's office said Virginia school districts received $33 million in the most recent reported school years for Medicaid school-based services. The lag in reporting times means that number includes direct expenditures for special education individual education plans for 2015-16, and administrative expenditures for 2014-15.
Among area school districts, Augusta County received just over $307,000 and Waynesboro $57,000 in the most recent Medicaid school-based funding.
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Augusta County Schools Finance Director Mark Lotts said the school district has a budget line item in the 2017-18 budget for Medicaid funding of $324,750.
"This offsets the cost of school nurses, psychologists, social workers, assistive technology and general health services,'' Lotts said. He said for a portion of the school district's students, school-based health services are the only health care those students receive.
And Lotts said while the Medicaid funding is only "three-tenths of one percent'' of the upcoming $103 million Augusta County Schools budget, "$324,000 is significant." Without the federal Medicaid money, Lotts said Augusta County would have to look elsewhere to fill the gap.
In Waynesboro, Assistant Superintendent Vermell Grant said the Medicaid funding helps pay a variety of services for Medicaid-eligible students. She said the funds are used for individual education plans, occupational therapy, speech and language services and personal health care assistance for students.
Waynesboro Schools Superintendent Jeff Cassell said the reimbursement from Medicaid for school-based services could approach $100,000 for this fiscal year. Cassell said the services for the Medicaid-eligible students must continue, regardless of what federal funding is available.
He said if federal funds are lost "we will have to provide'' the funding. Cassell said it is unlikely any reimbursement would come directly from the commonwealth of Virginia.
In a press release from Kaine on Wednesday, he said he has received significant feedback from both parents and school officials about cuts to Medicaid. The senator also pointed out that 60 percent of Virginia's Medicaid health care recipients are children.
The senator said he has heard "from teachers, parents and school officials who are terrified by what these cuts could mean for their students and their families. Medicaid enables many kids to go to school, plain and simple."
Kaine hosted a roundtable with parents, educators, school-based health care providers and school leaders earlier this week at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville.
Virginia U.S. Sen. Mark Warner met with parents and educators in his Capitol Hill office on Thursday to hear about their concerns regarding the proposed Medicaid cuts and the impact on families.
"These federal cuts to Medicaid will have a direct impact on the ability of thousands of Virginians to access effective, community-based care,'' Warner said in a release. "What's worse is, these federal funding cuts simply push the cost down to the state and localities — and ultimately to parents."