Every Sunday The State features a column called “The Buzz” — a series of cutesy little nuggets recapping the week in state politics.  This week’s column is particularly juicy – all sorts of finger-pointing over the $250 million budget fiasco at the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The column touches on several things of note.  Among the more eyebrow-raising points:

• Sanford administration officials knew back in June that the HHS budget was out-of-whack and set to run huge deficits.  Curiously, they did not formally request to run a deficit until Wednesday, November 3, 2010 — the day after Nikki Haley won the governor’s race.  (Convenient timing, no?)

• Emma Forkner, the former head of HHS in the Sanford Administration, testified before a Senate Committee last week and … though she beat around the proverbial bush somewhat … she implied that Gov. Sanford’s office told her to declare that they anticipated a slower Medicaid growth rate than the actual projected rate (and therefore requested a far lesser sum of money, which is the reason for the giant hole right now) — in other words, to lie.  In this article, Yvonne Wenger at the Charleston Post and Courier expands on what transpired during Forkner’s testimony:

She said the agency was headed toward a deficit as soon as the budget passed last summer. Forkner said she notified the governor’s office immediately and was told, “That it would work out.”

(State Senator Vincent) Sheheen asked Forkner, “Did the governor’s office force you to project a lower number than what you thought?”

Forkner said: “I followed the directions. How about that. How about I just say that.”

Sheheen said the testimony was disturbing. “It was clear to me that the governor’s office knew it was going to be out of balance and had no plan to deal with it,” Sheheen said.

Concluding thought: There’s something about all of this budget deficit stuff that just doesn’t pass the smell test. In addition to HHS, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Social Services requested back in December to run deficits of $7 million and $29 million respectively. Somehow Gov. Nikki Haley waved a magic wand as soon as she set foot in office and made both of those deficits disappear? Call me cynical, but I just don’t believe it. There’s no way reducing TANF (welfare) payments by a few bucks + rearranging a transportation plan + throwing in a few furloughs can wipe away a $29 million deficit so easily.  Makes me think somebody wasn’t telling the truth about the need to run these deficits in the first place.  The two-deficit-disappearing act sure is a convenient red herring to distract from the $250 million HHS debacle, which appears to be a direct result of a huge due diligence #fail and subsequent cover-up by the Sanford Administration.

Something just seems fishy, no?

The debate over how to address the $225 million deficit at the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services rages on. Just yesterday Gov. Nikki Haley declared a plan proposed by hospitals to pay more in taxes in order to avoid losing hundreds of millions in federal matching funds to be “immoral.”

Like Sanford, new Gov. Nikki Haley also wants the state’s health agency to be given the ability to cut what doctors and hospitals are paid so it can reduce its deficit, now about $225 million.

Haley stepped up her criticism Wednesday of lawmakers for not yet approving that move. She also called “immoral” a proposal by hospitals to increase the taxes that they pay — now $264 million a year — rather than cut rates that they and doctors are paid. Haley, a former hospital fundraising executive, said the added taxes would be passed on to patients.

Immoral?  Really?

For every dollar South Carolina pays into Medicaid, because our state is so poor, the federal government matches that dollar with three dollars in federal funding.  So let’s say hospitals have paid $3 in the past.  The federal government matches that $3 with $9.  $3 + ($3×3) = $12 total in funding to hospitals.  Haley wants hospitals to be paid $2 instead of $3.  So $2 + ($2×3) = $8 in funding to hospitals.  Now obviously this is a gross oversimplification of the real math, but the end result is a serious cut.

According to this op-ed written by the chairmen of the boards of Palmetto Health, Lexington Medical Center, and Providence Hospitals, a 10 percent cut in reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals and other providers “will reduce the state’s expenditures in the Medicaid program by about $100 million.” The overall economic impact would be roughly $400 million, though, because it would deflect federal matching funds.

The authors of the op-ed list possibilities of what may happen when that much money is gutted from the system:

•  Smaller hospitals that treat a disproportionate number of Medicaid and uninsured patients may not survive.

•  Emergency rooms will become more crowded, and wait times will be longer for all patients.

•  Some hospital services could be discontinued completely.

•  Insurance premiums will increase as more unreimbursed costs are shifted to employers and their workers who have coverage.

•  More than 2,600 hospital jobs could be lost.

Hospitals’ assuming a heavier financial burden in order to avoid such draconian reductions is immoral, Governor?  That’s a pretty gutsy thing for someone to say who finagled $35,000 in severance pay from a $110,000 a year job (for 10 hours a week) at Lexington Medical Center that was created expressly for her and for which she was paid a salary that was 63% higher than fundraisers at comparable charities.  (And the severance package came after allegedly not showing up for two weeks while busy campaigning for governor.)

Now *that* I would characterize as “immoral.”

Our public schools are constantly taking a beating by bloggers, commentators, and politicians in the press, so I was happy to see the news today that South Carolina has earned a distinction for something *good* in our public education system.  The Thomas B. Fordham Institute graded each state’s U.S. History standards on “clarity and specificity as well as content and rigor,” and South Carolina was the only state in the country to earn an A.  From the report:

“Just one state – South Carolina – has standards strong enough to earn a straight A,” the Fordham Institute report said.  “The Palmetto State deserves praise for having brought the necessary focus, rigor and innovation to this essential element of a comprehensive education.”

“South Carolina, both by revising its standards and adding innovative expository “support documents,” rose from a mediocre C to an outstanding A and now has the best U.S. History standards in the land,” today’s report said.

While we’ve still got a ways to go before all of our schools are of the caliber that South Carolina children deserve, it’s nice to have something positive to be proud of, right?  Success breeds success and all that.

After reading what South Carolina Superintendent of Education had to say in response to the honor, though, I was right back to feeling bleak and hopeless about our schools.  I guess that’s what he was going for?

Quoth Zais:

“Standards outline our expectations for classroom instruction,” Zais said.  “But world-class standards don’t guarantee world-class results.  We have to make sure teachers are covering the right material with their students.  We have to make sure they’re properly trained and have the materials and support they need.  And we need a system that gives teachers flexibility in creating classroom lessons, holds them accountable for their performance and rewards them when they succeed.”

Zais noted that although student scores on South Carolina’s high school U.S. History and the Constitution end-of-course exams improved in 2010, more than half of student test-takers made failing grades.

“That shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone,” he said.  “One positive result of today’s Fordham report is that districts and schools may be convinced to take better advantage of the support materials that are available to them.”

Geez, Mick.  As Franck Eggelhoffer would say…

Full press release from the South Carolina Department of Education after the jump.