The Governor has been getting worried that the budget bill won’t be passed and signed before July 1. A late budget isn’t out of the ordinary; in fact, the biennial bill is almost never signed into law before the July 1 start of the biennium. But Governor Doyle notes that the stakes are much higher this year because of the state’s huge deficit, and because the state would lose significant federal funding if it doesn’t enact certain budget measures in the next few days.

With that concern in mind, the Governor announced Tuesday that he was calling the legislature into a special session on June 24 to act on Special Session SB 1, which would make the changes added to the budget bill a month or so ago relating to the hospital assessment. According to a letter from DOA Secretary Michael Morgan, those changes have to be signed into law by Monday, June 29, for the state to be able to capture an additional $60.5 million in assessment fees and $74 million in federal Medicaid revenue. That additional revenue would be used to increase Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals by $108 million, with $26.6 million left to reduce spending from the General Fund during the current (2008-09) fiscal year.

Democrats in the Assembly and Senate haven’t rushed to action on the special session bill. They said they are committed to ensuring that WI doesn’t lose the federal dollars, but they apparently think the legislature can pass the whole budget bill by Monday.

A budget conference committee began meeting Wednesday evening, June 24, and is meeting again today to try to resolve more than 180 areas where there are differences between the Assembly and Senate versions of the biennial budget. Those differences are described in a comprehensive LFB comparative summary document. The extent of progress made today in the conference committee will probably determine whether action on a separate hospital assessment bill is necessary.