Form in rural and underserved areas. Cms recognizes challenges faced by beneficiaries and providers in rural areas. I look forward to working with hrsa and the congress delivering quality care to Medicare Beneficiaries regardless of their location. Thank you again and im happy to answer your questions. Thank you both. Let me answer a couple of questions and well do fiveminute rounds here. Mr. Morris, the department the budget the administration submitted would have cut your budget by 20 million. Did you ask for that cut . Mr. Chairman, we support the president s budget and the request that came forward. We think it supports the key programs for our office. Includes continued funding for the outreach program, the rural hospital flexibility program. For our policy and Research Activities and we think those are the programs that can be most effective meeting the needs. Where are you going to spend 20 million less than you are spending this year . The president s budget there is a decrease
Well done a role of sorts of on to item 2. Approval the loovks approval of the minutes for the special meeting colleagues you have the note any questions or comments changes seeing no comments open up for Public Comment on our minutes any Public Comment on this item . And seeing none, Public Comment is closed and if we could have. So i move approval of the minutes. Second by commissioner crews and well need to roll call vote well take that without objection. Okay. Well ago ton to we need a change of order of anything item 3. Item 3 consideration and approval of the final lafco budget for 20152016. Jason fried executive officer the budget is a relatively the same as presented in the budget of last month one small change as discussed at the meeting were going to be changing the process to reinforce the city clerk well be making i paying for it as needed basis this not to exceed rates and also weve done an celebrate in determining how much time for the clerk time and how much time to be s
7 and a half million renovation is part of the clean and safe Neighbors Park Fund which was on the ballot four years ago and look at how that Public Investment has transformed our neighborhood. The playground is unique in that it serves a number of age groups, unlike many of the other properties, it serves small children with the childrens play grounds and clubhouses that has basketball courts, it has an outdoor soccer field and so there were a lot of people that came to the table that had their wish list and we did our best to make sure that we kind of divided up spaces and made sure that we kept the old features of the playground but we were able to enhance all of those features. The playground and the soccer field and the tennis fields and it is such a key part of this neighborhood. We want kids to be here. We want families to be here and we want people to have athletic opportunities. We are given a real responsibility to insure that the publics money is used appropriately and that
Any real meaning in the real world . I mean, isnt the reality that when we say we are reimbursing more than costs, we only reimburse not all costs are reimbursable. We create this impression that a hospital is getting more than what it costs them to operate. Is there analysis . Can you quantify really what is going on in a hospital when we tell them or when we tell the public that your hospital is getting 101 of costs when its really reimbursable costs . Yeah, that is a as you know, thats a very complicated question. You know, it goes back to the historical costs of the hospital and if they converted to critical access, what those historical costs feed into, what they would be paid under the ch reimbursement status. So it does vary from state to state. But i would be happy to get back with you and also with your staff. We can connect you with some of the folks at the university of North Carolina as well some of our experts to better understand it. In todays setting i would welcome that
In Rural Communities, and we think the need is largely met in that program, not only through federal funding, but through state and private sector funding, but we do allow people to come in through our outreach funding to get at the same issue. They could come in for outreach funding or Network Funding for a request in the budget and do the same thing in the sense they can develop a program that seeks to purchase supplies and put them in the communities. The remaining need out there, it can be met through the outreach program. And the hospital Improvement Program youd continue is a 25 Million Program . Yes, sir. That in the current Year Spending 25 and preparing another 25 next year . Correct . The 20 this year for similar purposes goes away in the president s budget . Yes. The program, theres no request for that, funded historically at 15 million and the other 5 million is request for emergency devices program. What are the what obstacles do you see in telehealth. We have people telli