Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that establishes a multi-million dollar grant program that will provide mental health services to public Rhode Island students.

Highlights:

• Authorizes local education agencies to provide eligible children with early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT) services (Sec. 1b).

• Requires the local education agencies that choose to provide these services to certify to the department of human services that sufficient local funds have been expended to provide the necessary local certified match for EPSDT services and their administrative costs (Sec. 1c.1).

• Specifies that the department of human services will pay the local education agency from the federal matching funds for the services provided upon certification of the local match for those services (Sec. 1c.3).

• Prohibits the use of federal matching funds for any purpose other than education.

• Prohibits the reduction of local fiscal efforts to support education in response to the receipt of federal funds.

• Defines a “local education agency” as any city, town, or regional school district, any school for the deaf, the William M. Davies Jr. career and technical high school, the Metropolitan Career and Technical Center, any public charter school, any educational collaborative, and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (Sec. 1c.4).

• Requires that each community contribute an equal or greater amount of local funds to its school committee as the year prior (Sec. 1d.1).

• Prohibits the reduction of state support for education in response to a local education agency’s use of federal funds to provide EPSDT services (Sec. 1d.2).

• Specifies that the departments of human services and elementary and secondary education will oversee the interagency transfers necessary to comply with the above provisions (Sec. 1e).

• Authorizes the departments of human services and elementary and secondary education to promulgate all regulations necessary to implement this section (Sec. 1e).

• Requires that all local school agencies providing EPSDT services comply with all responsibilities of a Medicaid provider (Sec. 1e).

• Specifies that local educational agencies that fail to establish a local certified match sufficient to support its claims for EPSDT reimbursement will have their funds withheld and transferred to the department of human services (Sec. 1f).

• Authorizes the department of human services to determine which health care services provided by local education institutions are eligible for Medicaid reimbursement offering EPSDT services (Sec. 1g).

• Requires the department of human services to develop a time study training manual outlining how school personnel can complete a time study to better recover administrative costs (Sec. 1g.1) and a claiming manual outlining the financial information and claim submission requirements needed to complete claims (Sec. 1g.2).

Full Bill Text