Urgent Update On Financial Issues Affecting Your Center

Dear Member:
As you have may have heard on October 25, 2007, the governor issued an executive order requiring/ mandating the following if you have more than six employees and contract or are a vendor with the state:
- By July 1, 2008 if you receive $1 million or more from the state, you
must offer and maybe pay for  health insurance coverage for
your employees;
- By July 1, 2009 if you receive $500,000 or more from the state you
must offer and maybe pay for health insurance coverage for
your employees;
- By July 1, 2010 if you receive more than $250,000 you must
offer and maybe pay for health insurance coverage to your
employees;
If you have multiple contracts with the state, it is the aggregate of all those contracts that determine the total. So if you have state subsidy from CYFD and PreK from CYFD plus the food program or a Department of Health grant your total of state revenue determines your eligibility. This mandate will appear in all July 1, 2008 contracts. The General Services Department is supposed to develop the guidelines for this process by December 1, 2007. We don’t know until these guidelines are developed if you must pay for all or part of this insurance.
Members that served 40-50 state assisted kids will definitely fall under the $250,000 amount in 2010.  Many of you will already qualify at the $1 million level.
In addition to this new insurance mandate, minimum wage requirements are as follows: By January 1, 2008, the new minimum wage is $6.50 per hour. By January 1, 2009, the minimum wage increases to $7.50 per hour.
We will be seeking some legislative solutions in the session beginning January 15th 2008. We need to hear from you about these issues. Please feel free to contact me with questions or issues:
lsiegle1@earthlink.net 471-3563 or cell 690-5850.
Linda Siegle has been our lobbyist since 2000.