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Medicaid cut hits nursing home 12.6 percent reduction has Valley Hi officials, County Board on edge By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – A Medicaid cut for the last two months of the state fiscal year for Valley Hi Nursing Home will translate to at least half a million dollars next fiscal year if made permanent. The state imposed a 12.6 percent cut on Medicaid reimbursement for May and
June for most nursing homes, supportive living programs and specialized mental health rehabilitation facilities as part of a plan to make up for a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall. That cut means a total loss of slightly more than $100,000 for May and June for the taxpayer-owned nursing home west of Woodstock, and at least $572,320 if it is extended into the next state fiscal
year, which begins July 1, according to figures. County Administrator Peter Austin told the McHenry County Board last week that the cuts represent “very real money” that, had they been in place for the entire current fiscal year, would have resulted in the home operating at a loss. Eighty of the home’s 128 beds are set aside for Medicaid patients, with the rest di-
vided between Medicare and private-pay residents. “What lies beyond July 1, we don’t know yet,” Austin said. “We hope it won’t be as draconian as 12.6 percent cuts, but we have to prepare for that.” The likelihood of significant state cuts almost certainly increased Friday with the Illinois Supreme Court’s rejection of the 2013 pension
reform law as blatantly violating the state constitution’s pension protection clause. But while Valley Hi has operated at a small profit since 2011 following a slew of reforms, it is subsidized on top of its per-bed revenues by a property tax levy approved by voters who wanted a home to help care for the county’s seniors. “With the pension ruling
The ASSOCIATED PRESS
Spanish language GED preparation course instructor Orbe Soto teaches the final class of the semester Thursday at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake.
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Casimira Martinez of Crystal Lake works on a math problem Thursday during her final class of the semester in the Spanish language GED preparation course at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – The biggest hurdle for many hoping to get their high school equivalency degree is that the new test is digital, one adult education director said. That’s despite the fact the new test rolled out last year by GED Testing Service was aligned to meet the new Common Core curriculum standards and is designed to be more rigorous. It’s also more expensive.
See MEDICAID, page A4
Super PACs to flood ’16 campaign
Changes to GED test bring new challenges New standards make exam more rigorous, more expensive
everything changes again, and we have yet to see how it’s going to look,” Valley Hi Administrator Tom Annarella said Monday. “I’m really praying that it’s not going to be any worse.” At least one County Board member said the board may have to rethink its dedication to holding the budget line on
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The majority of the students working toward their diploma by taking McHenry County College’s adult education classes – the college serves the vast majority of students in the county – are 25 to 44 years old, said Tom Pierce, the department’s executive director.
They’re not going to have the same computer skills as someone right out of high school, and neither will the other big population MCC serves, Spanish-language speakers, he said. The GED offers tests in English, Spanish and French. A grant has allowed the department to purchase a laptop cart, which serves as a mobile computer lab and gives students the opportunity to improve their computer skills, but faculty also had to revise the entire curriculum for its adult basic and adult secondary pro-
grams this year. The new curriculum was just submitted to the state for review and could be implemented this summer or fall, Pierce said. “A lot of the question types have changed,” Pierce said. “In a lot of ways, the old GED test was a math test and a reading test. You could go through the social studies and the science, and if you could read the selections, you could answer the questions. What they’re saying
WASHINGTON – When Hillary Rodham Clinton takes the stage at fundraisers thrown by a group that wants to elect her president, she’s not presented as a White House candidate. She’s a “special guest.” When Jeb Bush raises money for a group preparing to run major parts of his allbut-certain presidential campaign, he doesn’t ask for the cash himself. And the hundreds of millions these groups will raise? They have to spend it without talking strategy with the candidates and campaigns they support. The groups are called super PACs, and their influence in selecting the next president will be without precedent. Born out of two Supreme Court decisions in 2010, they are governed by rules some see as a game of winks and nods, enforced by an agency bedeviled by partisan gridlock. As with most things in Washington, there’s not even agreement on whether they are a problem to solve, or are a solution to celebrate. “What’s really going on largely is a breakdown of the enforcement system of the campaign finance laws,” said Craig Holman of the left-leaning consumer group Public Citizen. “The Federal Election Commission is just broken.” Counters David Keating of the right-leaning Center for Competitive Politics, “I think this is overblown. The line has been drawn: It’s the First Amendment. So if people want to speak, let them.” The primary benefit for campaigns of the super PACs is that they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for and against candidates, with only a few rules holding them back. Among the rules is a ban on campaigns and super PACs working together. They cannot discuss political strategy or share key information such as internal polling. While candidates can attend super PAC events, they cannot technically ask for the unlimited donations that make the groups such a powerful force.
See GED, page A4 See CAMPAIGNS, page A4
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