Latest news with #Section115
Los Angeles Times
11-06-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Huntington Beach draws from reserves to adopt structurally balanced 2025-26 budget
The Huntington Beach City Council has passed a budget with a listed surplus of $1.1 million for fiscal year 2025-26, though the city will be dipping into reserves and slashing some programs to do so. The council unanimously voted to adopt the budget at its June 3 meeting. The fiscal year begins July 1. Robert Torrez, the city's interim chief financial officer, presented the budget at the meeting. The nearly $555-million budget includes more than $298 million in general fund revenues. Torrez said the budget balancing included the elimination of six positions, including a deputy city manager and senior deputy city attorney, which would save about $2 million. Nearly $3 million in ongoing operating expenses will also be cut, including the mobile mental health program Be Well. Laguna Beach also recently decided to scale back its Be Well hours. Another part of the budget balancing included withdrawing $1.5 million from a Section 115 trust, as well as reducing $4.5 million in general fund transfers to self insurance worker's compensation and general liability funds. Additionally, the budget calls for a transfer of $2.4 million to the general fund from the Waterfront Loan repayment. Mayor Pro Tem Casey McKeon said he and his colleagues have worked hard every year since being elected in 2022 to turn a budget deficit into a surplus. 'This one was the hardest one — $8.8 million and we did it,' McKeon said. 'To touch on the reserves, we used strategic and prudent use of reserve funds, which is what these reserve funds are designed for in situations like this.' But some residents were critical of the portrayal of a balanced budget, especially with more budget deficits projected in the future. 'We are in fiscal crisis, and the way you present things will not change those facts,' Ken Inoue said. Nearly half of the city's revenues are taxes, with property tax accounting for 37.9% of the revenue and sales tax an additional 17.6%. More than half of general fund expenditures go to the police department (32.2%) and fire department (21.6%) combined. Council members also discussed hiring additional fire captains, with McKeon moving to add one more administrative fire captain and upgrade the ambulance model from 14 hours to 24 hours. The department had asked for two additional captains, Councilman Chad Williams said. He then asked why the council couldn't approve the second captain position for special events, calling it a necessity rather than a luxury. 'They wouldn't be asking for it if they didn't need it,' Williams said. 'We have over 1,000 employees in the city, and I can't wrap my mind around the idea that these two fire captains would somehow end up at the very bottom of that barrel.' But McKeon said he had talked with officials there. 'They understand that we need to get our revenues up and our expenses down, and we'll readdress that second captain position later this year,' he said. Williams' substitute motion for two administrative fire captains rather than one failed 5-2, with only Don Kennedy joining Williams in support. McKeon's amended motion for the one captain then passed 6-0-1, with Williams abstaining.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
San Francisco health dept., nonprofit team up for overdose awareness at Giants game
SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Giants may have been squaring off against the Texas Rangers Friday night, but about 100 yards from home plate above Section 115, the San Francisco Department of Public Health and Song For Charlie, a non-profit, joined forces to educate baseball fans about the dangers of fentanyl and how to treat an overdose. According to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 65 people died from unintentional drug overdoses in March alone. They hope to drastically decrease that number by spreading awareness and teaching more people how to administer Narcan, an opioid-reversal drug. "We know that overdoses can impact anyone in any corner of life," said Harmony Bulloch, a grant analyst with the department of public health. "We want to make sure people can do this training and have naloxone and potentially save a life." Also at the game was Christina Julian and her children, Dakota and Cindy. For the Julians, the night's cause hit close to home. Julian lost her niece, Claire, a student at the University of Southern California to an accidental fentanyl overdose. "It was truly the most horrible moment in my life," Julian said. "Xanax was a medication Claire was familiar with. She thought she was making a smart choice, but unfortunately, she didn't go to a trusted source and that one decision changed all of our lives." Julian said the opportunity to spread awareness and educate the public at a Major League Baseball game gives them the chance to reach people they may not otherwise. "The problem is that fentanyl doesn't discriminate against age or race or gender or economic status," Julian said. "Everybody is at risk." If you or someone you know is suffering from substance abuse, you can contact the San Francisco Substance Abuse hotline at (415) 834-1144.
Express Tribune
17-04-2025
- Express Tribune
Crackdown against rickshaws launched
On directive of Balochistan High Court (BHC) and on the directions of Commissioner, Chairman Regional Transport Authority Quetta Division Hamza Shafqat, a series of actions against illegal rickshaws are underway in Quetta city. In this regard, during a check on the double road under the supervision of Secretary RTA Quetta Division Ali Durrani, five rickshaws were seized and stopped under Section 115.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Republicans push Medicaid work requirements through the New Hampshire Senate
Senate Bill 134 seeks to require that New Hampshire Medicaid recipients work in order to receive health care through the program. (Photo by Getty Images) The New Hampshire Senate voted on party lines, 16-8, Thursday to approve a Republican-backed work requirement plan for Medicaid — the latest in a series of proposals that could dramatically alter the Medicaid landscape in the Granite State. Senate Bill 134 seeks to require that New Hampshire Medicaid recipients work in order to receive health care through the program. Because Medicaid is a program jointly run by the state and federal government, any work requirements would need to be submitted by the state to the federal government. This bill would instruct the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to draft and submit a request — known as a Section 115 demonstration waiver — to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That request would have to be approved by the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, a financial committee composed of members of both the state Senate and House. In addition to providing health care coverage for 183,000 low-income and high-need New Hampshire residents, Medicaid finances the medical costs of over 1 in 5 births and care for about 2 of every 3 nursing home patients in the state, according to CMS. Approximately 65% of Medicaid recipients are currently working, according to DHHS. Republicans framed the proposal as a way to help Medicaid recipients get out of poverty. 'We are a state that prides itself on work to support our families, independence, and self-sufficiency,' Sen. Howard Pearl, a Loudon Republican, said on the Senate floor Thursday. 'Medicaid and other welfare programs should be a bridge for non-aged, non-disabled adults, not a destination.' He pointed out that other programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — also known as SNAP or food stamps — have work requirements. Democrats pushed back, arguing that taking away people's health care when they're out of work does not help them find work, but rather it makes it more difficult for them to find work. 'When Granite Staters have access to health care, then they are healthy and when they are healthy, we have a healthy workforce,' Sen. Suzanne Prentiss, a West Lebanon Democrat, said. 'We have heard this from the hospitals, we have heard this from the businesses, and we've heard it from the people themselves.' Indeed, research compiled by the Brookings Institution suggests that work requirements for programs like SNAP and Medicaid do not increase employment and often strip benefits from people. For Medicaid specifically, the research found that in states with work requirements, many people lost their health care coverage not because they didn't meet the work requirement, but because they struggled with complex reporting systems these states implemented to enforce the work requirements. This bill will need to be reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee before the House of Representatives considers it. New Hampshire has attempted Medicaid work requirements before, but failed upon implementation. The state added Medicaid work requirements through legislation that went into effect in 2019. This required Medicaid recipients to work 100 hours a month to receive coverage. However, just one month into the new system, the state reversed course. Only about 8,000 of the 25,000 people subject to the requirement complied and documented their hours. Before the remaining roughly 17,000 people lost coverage, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, halted the requirement. The state had already spent more than $130,000 sending letters and text messages, making phone calls, holding public information sessions, and setting up information tables outside grocery stores and other locations in an effort to inform recipients of the requirements. They also sent state employees to go door-to-door in high-enrollment neighborhoods in Manchester, Nashua, and Laconia. New Hampshire's botched work requirements came after Arkansas, the first in the nation to attempt Medicaid work requirements, failed to implement a similar system in 2018. There, the system revoked Medicaid coverage from more than 18,000 people — nearly 1 in 4 of those subject to work requirements — in just seven months. Evidence suggests many of those who lost coverage did so not because they didn't meet the 80-hour-per-month requirements but because of bureaucratic dysfunction. This is one of several changes being proposed to Medicaid in New Hampshire. Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte is attempting to cut down the costs of the program in a tight budget year for the state. Ayotte's proposed budget, and the accompanying policy-related 'trailer bill,' would charge some recipients premiums, increase pharmacy cost-sharing, and end the already winding down continuous eligibility system. If Ayotte's proposals are enacted, Medicaid recipients, with children, who earn 255% of the federal poverty level and those without children who earn between 100% and 138% of the poverty level, would have to make payments of up to 5% of their household income in order to receive coverage. Additionally, the amount Medicaid recipients pay for their prescriptions would rise from $1 or $2 to $4 per prescription (unless that exceeds 5% of household income). Lastly, Ayotte is attempting to end continuous enrollment, a system that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed people to keep their Medicaid coverage even after they no longer met the requirements. (That system already ended, but the state needed time to disenroll recipients.) At the same time, Medicaid recipients and advocates are bracing for potential cuts at the federal level. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution last month that instructed congressional committees to impose a series of cuts to the federal budget. In order to make these cuts happen, experts believe the government would need to slash an estimated $800 billion from Medicaid nationwide. In New Hampshire, the concern is particularly acute due to a so-called trigger law the state passed in 2018. That law would cut state funding for New Hampshire's Medicaid expansion program — which is funded jointly by the state and federal government — if federal funding falls below 90% of the cost of the program.
