The operating Budget

The Operating Budget

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The Operating Budget

The Operating Budget for Pennsylvania state

This agency is at a cabinet level in the state of Pennsylvania. It is situated in Harrisburg and has several program offices that are aimed for the admission of services. These program offices are made for supporting and caring for the citizens who are vulnerable in Pennsylvania. The services this agency offer range from foster care, the development of childhood in the early stages, Juvenile justice, services in autism, programs associated in living programs, persons with disabilities, determining the citizens eligible for the benefits and programs in physical and behavioural health care (Pennsylvania department of human services, 2017).

The department of human services comprises of seven program offices. One of the program offices includes the office of Medical Assistance Programs. This program deals with providing and purchasing healthcare for residents that are 2.4 million and more in Pennsylvania.This program office is also responsible for guiding the medical assistant providers by enrolling them so they can deliver better care. This office also works with the Medical providers when it comes to processing their demands, determining their fee and the rates they will use as well as contracting and looking into the medical care organizations. It also makes sure that there are no integrity issues in the department.

Another program office under the Pennsylvania department of human service is the office of developmental programs. It is responsible for providing services that support and care for the residents in Pennsylvania that have disabilities either cognitive, intellectual or those that are caused by autism. The office of mental health and substance abuse services is responsible for programs that are aimed at supporting the people who suffer from mental illnesses or issues related to drug and substance abuse like alcoholism.

There is also an office that deals with the matters of children. The program office that deals with such matters is called office of children youth and families. This office deals with foster care and adoption where it supervises homes before giving children for adoption and also during the adoption to confirm that the child is happy and doing well. It is also responsible for preventing abuse in children either sexually or physically and also deals with cases related to juvenile justice(Pennsylvania department of human services, 2017).

The department also has a program office of income maintenance that helps the residents of Pennsylvania through programs that involve cashdonations. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) is an example of the cash donation program that deals with programs that assist people to get employment and training, those that help refugees and homeless and also those that deal with the supply of nutrition. These services have been delivered through the use of county assistance officers who are situated in Pennsylvania.

This department also has the opportunity to work with different state agencies with the same number of inhabitants. It is able to form a partnership through the office of long term living with the department of Aging. This partnership is usually aimed at providing solutions and dealing with problematic areas that hinder the success in housing. The partnership also is responsible for taking care of the elderly.

A partnership with the department of education and the office of child develop,net and early learning provides children and their families with learning such that they are able to help out in caring for children. This involves introducing programs that help the children who are at risk because of their decisions. There able to introduce programs that help such children at a very early stage.

The facilities that have been made for the residents of Pennsylvania have been licensed and regulated such that the centers that take care of children and care homes have experienced the change. This has made the department of human services be more interested in seeing its residents being able to live independently and the members in the community to live in the environment that will be less restrictive for those that would want to access help daily(Fine, 2014).

The department of human services has a mission to make sure that its residents have improved the quality of their lives either at an individual level, family level or as a community. They are also responsible for promoting opportunities that have the aim of helping out the residents in being more independent by providing them with services that will help them achieve that. The department is also aimed at supporting its residents financially and also accounting for their expenditure for the taxpayer resources.

Budget Overview

The department has allocated $648M for purposes of funding programs that deal with avoiding and recovering the costs in integrity. There has also been an increase of $65 million from the fiscal years of 2014 and 2015 in the programs of integrity. This has been the highest level over the five years. The funds that are put into the program have to be accounted for because the taxpayers money ought to be spent appropriately.The integrity program thus ensures that they deliver quality services and care as they demonstrate accountability.

The fiscal years of 2014 and 2015, the residents of Pennsylvania who were receiving the services they were not supposed to made the department create a restriction list. This enabled them save 55 million dollars. Also in the fiscal years of 2015 and 2016, 45 million dollars was saved because of accuracy achieved when giving out Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The accuracy level rose from 96.34 to 97.7 percent. In this fiscal year also, 33.3 percent of the expenditure was used on Medicaid (Pennsylvania department of human services, 2017).

In the fiscal years of 2016 and 2017, the department of human services had a total of 39.5 billion dollars which showed an increase in expenditure by 1 billion dollars. The general fund was approximated to be around 13.1 billion dollars. This was caused by the expansion that was made on Medicaid. Technological advances that were made on medicine and other related areas led to high prices in pharmaceuticals which increased raised the expenditure levels in medical.

Cost analysis

Funding in the fiscal year of 2016 and 2017 in the office of income maintenance, there was an increase that was made to 26.3 billion from 24.4 billion dollars. This showed an increase of 1.9 billion dollars. There were expectations regarding the state funds such that there was supposed to be an increase to 7.4 billion dollars. This was an increase of 572 million dollars from the fiscal year of 2015 to 2016 which had 6.9 million dollars. As shared by (Pennsylvania department of human services, 2017), this increase was made because of the various programs in the state which was able to fund the county child welfare with money.

In the office of the income management for the fiscal year of 2015 to 2016, the money acquired from child care services and donations resulted to 2.8 billion dollars. The budget however increased in the years of 2016 and 2017 to 2.9 billion dollars. From the 2.9 billion dollars, a sum of 806 million dollars was allocated for the child care services. The general fund however increased as well to a total of 920 million dollars from 882 million dollars.

In the office that dealt with people with disability either intellectual or mental had the budget of the years 2016 to 2017 provide a continuation of services that were related to them. The budget in June 2016 was increased, despite having some facilities reduced. The budgets went over to an increase of 102 percent, which was an approximate of 1.8 billion dollars. This was influenced by their wide coverage in counties across the state.In the budget of 2016 to 2017, the budget that was proposed was 2.4 billion dollars (Pennsylvania department of human services, 2017).

Budget challenges

One of the challenges the Pennsylvania department of human services face is when they create a budget based on the needs of the residents such that they overlook some that are very important. Some of the overlooked needs are the important goals of this department. Thus it will hinder the overall plans of the department. Thus before making a budget for this department, both the needs of the citizens in Pennsylvania and the goals of the department should be considered.

Another problem that is a challenge in budgeting is when there are static budgets introduced in the plans of the financial year. This will make the department strain itself financially by trying to meet the changes in targets. Adjusting budgets and plans results to deviations in the market in the department, especially when it does not have a systematic process. This would paralyze the department because the process will be inefficient.

Budget recommendations

The state of Pennsylvania should continue with their planning and response when it comes to dealing with emergency cases. It has been successful over the years because it was uninterrupted. Such action has been able to keep the residents of Pennsylvania be safe and secure and has also made the state set aside 3.5 million dollars. The money has been used effectively and well during the emergency cases.

The Pennsylvania department of human services should also strive to deal with redundancies, update technology because it has evolved over the years, work to make communication better, deal with delays, add more staff to its team by creating employment, make sure that they have made their goals achievable and also care for the residents of Pennsylvania. This will increase the amount of money that will be saved by the tax payers.

References

PA.Gov. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.dhs.pa.gov/

PA.Gov. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.dhs.pa.gov/learnaboutdhs/more/index.htm

Fine, M. J. (2014). The second handbook on parent education: Contemporary perspectives. Elsevier.