Afternoon Briefs: Late Financial Report Double Dipping "Dire Set Of Circumstances"
- State's Financial Report Will Be Late For Sixth Straight Year
- Double Billing Leads To $2,500 Penalty For Former State Worker
- High Job Vacancy Rates Spread Across Mass. Hospitals
State's Financial Report Will Be Late For Sixth Straight Year
For the sixth consecutive year, the annual report the state comptroller is statutorily required to file by Oct. 31 will be late. And while Comptroller William McNamara formally let his advisory board know that just Monday, his office also revealed that he had communicated the message to key lawmakers nearly three weeks ago. In order to meet the annual Oct. 31 deadline for the Statutory Basis Financial Report (SBFR), McNamara and previous comptrollers have urged lawmakers to pass the annual close-out supplemental budget bill by the end of September to give his team and outside auditors sufficient time to prepare the report. Gov. Charlie Baker filed the close-out supp on Aug. 31, but like the unanimously-supported economic development bill, it remains under wraps and subject to redrafting at the legislative committee level. "I write today to inform you that we will not meet the statutory deadline of October 31," McNamara wrote to Baker, budget chief Michael Heffernan, and Ways and Means Committee chairmen Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael Rodrigues on Oct. 14. He added, "Even an optimistic outlook would place issuance of the SBFR some weeks later than its due date. No matter the origin of the delay, state law makes no provision to adjust the timing. We project this failure to hit the deadline with regret." In a letter Monday to Comptroller Advisory Board members and delegates, McNamara said the last time the state comptroller was able to file the SBFR on time was in 2016. The 2017 and 2018 reports were finished in November, the 2019 was delayed until January, the 2020 pandemic-shaded report was done in December, and the 2021 SBFR was done in mid-November. In the letter Monday, the comptroller also reported that he had written to Baker, Heffernan, Michlewitz and Rodrigues weeks earlier "to convey the importance of the SBFR, its connection to other critical financial reports, and the potential impacts of significant delay." That letter was included as an attachment. McNamara's communications director, Michael Sangalang, made no mention of the Oct. 14 letter when the News Service asked on Oct. 26 whether McNamara had been in touch with the Ways and Means chairs, even though it had been nearly two weeks since it was sent. - Colin A. Young/SHNS
Double Billing Leads To $2,500 Penalty For Former State Worker
A former state employee paid a $2,500 penalty in connection with holding two state jobs simultaneously and submitting timesheets for 31 overlapping hours. The State Ethics Commission on Monday said Brooke Merkin submitted timesheets seeking payment for mostly remote work from two employers, the Center for Health Information and Analysis and the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security. Ethics regulators said Merkin would have been paid more than $1,200 in unearned, undue compensation had the two agencies not discovered the double billing. When she attempted to resign from both jobs in March 2021, both agencies declined to accept her resignation and terminated her employment instead. The commission, which dismissed an adjudicatory proceeding against her upon payment of the civil penalty, said Merkin began work as a fulltime "deskside support engineer" with CHIA on Jan. 25, 2021, and then on Feb. 16 also began working as a parttime service desk analyst for EOTSS. Merkin held both positions "without either state agency's approval or awareness, and gave false excuses to CHIA when she was unavailable during hours she was working for EOTSS," the commission said, citing conflict of interest law violations and timesheet submissions that broke "fraudulent claims" laws. According to the disposition agreement in the case, Merkin was scheduled to work for CHIA from 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and for EOTTS from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. The agreement said that between Feb. 19, 2021 and March 2, 2021 Merkin sought payment from the state for working both positions "during the same hours, for a total of 31 overlapping hours." "Merkin knew she submitted to CHIA and EOTSS timesheets for 31 hours that overlapped and knowingly gave false excuses to CHIA for her unavailability during hours when she was working for EOTSS," the disposition agreement said. "On February 19, 2021, she told her manager at CHIA that she could not work a full day due to an internet outage at her home. She was approved to work the remainder of the day using her cell phone. Later that day, she claimed mice had chewed through her internet cables. She submitted timesheets to both CHIA and EOTSS falsely reporting 6 hours worked for each agency, between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., on February 19, 2021." - Michael P. Norton/SHNS
High Job Vacancy Rates Spread Across Mass. Hospitals
Massachusetts hospitals are short on workers to the tune of 19,000 full-time positions statewide and the shortage, combined with hospital financial losses, has created "an unprecedented crisis" for providers that affects both access and cost for patients, a new report concluded. The estimate of the hospital workforce shortage is based on a survey the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association (MHA) conducted this summer with hospitals representing 70 percent of the total acute care hospital employment in Massachusetts. Those hospitals had 6,650 vacancies and the estimate of 19,000 statewide was reached by "[e]xtrapolating the vacancy data to all positions in all Massachusetts acute care hospitals," the organization that represents hospitals said. The highest vacancy rate among survey respondents was for licensed practical nurses, a position that provides basic nursing care and for which there was a 56 percent vacancy rate. High vacancy rates were also reported for pulmonary function technicians (35 percent), home health aides (34 percent), mental health workers/technicians (32 percent), and infection control nurses (26 percent). The median vacancy rate across all positions was 17.2 percent, the report said. MHA said that the shortage of workers, which accelerated through the COVID-19 pandemic, "is driving labor costs to an unsustainable level and destabilizing the already fragile state of hospital financials." Through the first half of fiscal year 2022, Massachusetts hospitals spent $445 million on temporary registered nurse staffing. MHA said that amount is "significantly more" than what they had spent in total in any previous budget year and puts Massachusetts "on track to approach an unprecedented $1 billion in spending on just temporary RNs for the full FY2022." "It is essential that community members and leaders understand the dire set of circumstances that hospitals are now operating under," Steve Walsh, president and CEO of MHA, said in a statement. "Our healthcare system has never been more fragile, and its leaders have never been more concerned about what's to come in the months ahead. They are exhausting every option within their control to confront these challenges, but this is an unsustainable reality and providers are in need of support. Healthcare organizations, payers, public officials, and community members must come together to find solutions before access to care is further jeopardized." The MHA report recommends that Massachusetts use some of its remaining American Rescue Plan Act money to provide hospitals with financial support, increase training for behavioral health, substance use disorders, and trauma-responsive competencies; extend the Baker administration's workforce pipeline development strategies, loan forgiveness and scholarship programs from the behavioral health field across all providers; and keep in place public health emergency "flexibilities" that have made licensing, staffing, and capacity innovations easier. - Colin A. Young/SHNS
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10/31/2022