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Source: Omaha World-Herald
LINCOLN — The announcement in the Federal Register made it official.
An obscure legislative employee laboring in the depths of the Nebraska Capitol had taken on the federal government and won.
Liz Hruska's accomplishment will mean $6.3 million more for the state's bottom line this year, a time when tax revenues are sagging.
It's also earned her praise from State Sen. Lavon Heidemann of Elk Creek, the Appropriations Committee chairman, and from U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
“Because of an outdated calculation, Nebraska stood to lose millions in federal funds for Medicaid,” Nelson said. “The federal formula will now accurately reflect the unemployment numbers in Nebraska.”
Hruska, a 25-year program analyst in the legislative fiscal analyst's office, was modest about the turn of events.
“I was just kind of doing what I'm hired to do and what I'm trained to do,” she said.
As one of nine legislative program analysts, her job involves estimating the cost of proposed legislation, tracking state spending and monitoring how the federal government, state laws and other forces will affect the state budget.
Hruska's focus is on Medicaid and other human services programs.
Earlier this year, she discovered something odd when she tried to figure out how much Medicaid money Nebraska would get under the federal stimulus program.
One part of the stimulus provides more Medicaid money for states that have seen unemployment rise.
The first six months of additional Medicaid payments were based on unemployment numbers from October through December. Nebraska, with its stronger economy at the time, didn't qualify.
But Hruska discovered the state also might miss out on additional Medicaid for the three months beginning April 1, despite the growing numbers of Nebraskans out of work.
An informal e-mail alerted her that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services planned to base payments for those months on unemployment from December through February, rather than January through March. That didn't sound right to Hruska, who said it would have given inordinate weight to the December figures.
She checked and double-checked the information about the HHS plans, then took her concern to her boss. They then raised the issue with Nelson, who wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on July 7.
Her answer came Friday, when HHS announced in the Federal Register that it would switch to using January through March unemployment numbers.
The change in plans means Nebraska will qualify for the additional federal Medicaid dollars. So will 15 other states, according to the Federal Funds Information for States, an organization that tracks the impact of federal programs on state budgets.
“Liz did a nice job on that. Nice catch,” said Michael Calvert, director of the legislative fiscal analyst's office. “It's great staff work on her part.”
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