State Senator Ryan Mishler, left, addresses the crowd while Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rob Parker listens in during a legislative review session hosted by the Chamber on Feb. 9. InkFreeNews photo by Liz Shepherd.

By Liz Shepherd
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Medicaid, transportation, and improving Indiana students’ reading skills were topics of discussion during a Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce legislative review session on Feb. 9.

State Sen. Ryan Mishler was the only politician in attendance, but addressed several questions from the audience.

Mishler provided clarification on a recent presentation the Indiana Family & Social Services Administration provided on the forecasted need for an increased appropriation to the Medicaid program.

“They’re saying we lost a billion dollars,” said Mishler. “Nobody lost anything…A forecast is an estimate of future costs. What happened between the (April and December 2023) forecasts, the expenses went sky-high, skyrocketed. Nobody made a mistake. It’s just that the expenses are skyrocketing.”

Mishler said the state government has to find ways to cut back on Medicaid. He’s been spending about 80% of his time working with the FSSA to determine how to lower the shortfall.

Doug Hanes, Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce board member, asked about changes coming to Medicaid Waiver programs. These waiver programs allow Medicaid to fund supports and services for children and adults with disabilities in their homes or residential programs instead of institutions.

Mishler said increases in family members providing care for disabled individuals versus licensed caregivers increased in 2022, following COVID-19. However, he noted some family members were being allowed to turn in up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for payments.

“That’s roughly $130,000 a year,” said Mishler. “And then the providers get more because they’re keeping about 60 to 70% of that. That’s why it went off the rails in 2023…word of mouth. ‘Hey, go to Indiana. They pay you this to stay home and take care of your mom, or dad, or child.’ And then it just blew up.”

Mishler said FSSA is not doing away with the program, but making it a per diem per day rate, with three tiers at $77, $99 and $133 daily, depending on the level of care being provided per individual.

“By us taking this program back, (the providers) actually lose money,” said Mishler. “I’m thinking some of them don’t want us to know they’re letting (family members) bill for 24 hours a day.”

Hanes also asked Mishler about local transportation in regards to future work on US 30 and possibly changing the Warsaw Municipal Airport from a board of aviation commissioners to a city-county airport authority.

Mishler said the community has good local representation on pushing the US 30 revamp project, which has been discussed over the course of several years. There is currently no set start date on when major work toward revamping US 30 would begin. Representatives for ProPEL US 30, a transportation organization completing studies along the US 30 corridor, has office hours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, at Warsaw Community Public Library.

For potentially changing Warsaw’s airport to a city-county airport authority, Mishler said it’s a hard sell to the community due to fees those outside of Warsaw would have to pay.

“Most people aren’t going to understand that everybody benefits from some of the growth of the orthopedics in Warsaw…if we fix the airport up, we have more growth, you get more money for your schools and things like that,” said Mishler. “That is a hard sell.”

Mishler also discussed Senate Bill 1, which would “ensure Hoosier students get the best reading education by providing Science of Reading instruction, committing to early detection and remediation for students not reading at grade level.” This bill would retain third grade students who are not reading well enough from moving on to fourth grade.

Mishler said one aspect he learned while putting together SB 1 was a large number of students in Indiana take health or physical education classes during summer school in order to not take those courses during the school year.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Mishler. “If they can’t read, I don’t know what else you do. You have to teach the kids to read somehow. And if they’re not ready to go, and we’re passing them through, is that doing the kid any good?”