Under current law, DHFS distributes IV-E funds as community aids to
counties to provide social services to children and families. If on December 31 of any
year there remains unspent or unencumbered in the community aids basic county
allocation an amount that exceeds the amount of IV-E funds allocated as community
aids in that year (excess IV-E funds), DHFS must carry forward to the next year
those excess IV-E funds and distribute not less than 50% of those excess IV-E funds
to counties other than Milwaukee County that are making a good faith effort to
implement the statewide automated child welfare information system (generally
referred to as "WISACWIS") for services and projects to assist children and families.
Currently, a county is required to use not less than 50% of the excess IV-E funds
distributed to that county for services and projects to assist children and families.
This bill permits a county, in the year in which the county implements WISACWIS
and in the two succeeding years, to use 100% of the excess IV-E funds distributed
to that county to reimburse DHFS for the costs of implementing WISACWIS.
Under current law, the child abuse and neglect prevention board (CANPB) may
expend the interest earned on, but not the principal of, moneys received from the sale
of "Celebrate Children" license plates to award grants for child abuse and neglect
prevention programs, early childhood family education centers, and Right From the
Start projects; to administer statewide child abuse and neglect prevention projects;
and to pay for the operating costs of CANPB. This bill permits CANPB to expend 50%
of the moneys received from the sale of those license plates, and all interest earned
on those moneys received, to award the grants, administer the projects, and pay for
its operating costs.
Family care
Under family care, a program of financial assistance in providing long-term
care and support items, persons are entitled to (will receive) a benefit if they are at
least 18 years of age, have physical disabilities or infirmities of aging, meet financial
criteria, and fulfill any applicable cost-sharing requirements. They must also meet
any of several criteria related to functionality, eligibility for MA, the need for
protective services or protective placement, and the existence of chronic or terminal
conditions. Other persons may be eligible for, but are not necessarily entitled to, the
family care benefit if they are at least 18 years of age, have physical disabilities or
infirmities of aging, meet financial criteria, fulfill any applicable cost-sharing
requirements, and meet any of several criteria relating to functionality. DHFS is
authorized to determine the date on which these functionality criteria first apply to
applicants for the family care benefit who are not MA recipients, but the date may
not be later than July 1, 2000. Persons with developmental disabilities in a county
in which family care initially was provided before July 1, 2001, are both eligible and
entitled. One of the criteria for functionality for both entitled and eligible persons
is that the person have a condition that is expected to last at least 90 days or result
in death within 12 months after the date of application and, on the date that the
family care benefit became available in the person's county of residence, the person
was a nursing home resident or had been receiving care under long-term MA, the
Alzheimer's Family Caregiver Support Program, community aids, or county funding.
This bill applies the family care functionality criterion that relates to a chronic
or terminal condition to eligible persons who do not meet other functionality criteria.
The bill requires that a person seeking a determination of functional eligibility under
the criterion first apply for eligibility for the family care benefit within 36 months
after the date on which the family care benefit is initially available in the person's
county of residence. Further, for persons who are entitled to the family care benefit,
the bill creates a criterion that is similar but under which a person qualifies only if
he or she does meet another specific functionality criterion. The bill changes
provisions concerning persons with developmental disability, so that a person who
is 18 years of age, has a primary disabling condition of developmental disability, and
meets financial and functionality criteria is both eligible for and entitled to the
family care benefit if the person is a resident of a county in which family care was
initially provided before July 1, 2003.
The bill changes the latest date that DHFS may determine for beginning to
apply functionality criteria under the Family Care Program to family care benefit
applicants who are not MA recipients. Under the bill, the date must be not later than
January 1, 2004, but, before the determined date, persons who are not eligible for MA
may receive the family care benefit within the limits of state funds appropriated for
this purpose and available federal funds.
Currently, DHFS may contract with various entities to operate family care
resource centers, which provide, among other things, determinations of family care
eligibility and information and referral services. If the secretary of health and family
services certifies that a family care resource center is available in a county, adult
family homes, residential care apartment complexes, C-BRFs, and nursing homes
in the county must, unless certain exceptions apply, refer persons who are at least
65 years of age who or have physical disabilities that are expected to last at least 90
days to the resource center for services and determinations of family care and other
program eligibility. In addition, nursing homes must so refer persons with
developmental disability.
Currently, a family care resource center in a county must, within six months
after the family care benefit is available to all eligible persons in the resource center's
area, provide information about the family care benefit and family care services to
all older persons and persons with physical disabilities who reside in facilities in the
area, must provide a functional and financial screening to those residents and to
certain persons who are seeking admission to a facility, and must provide access for
eligible persons to protective services or protective placement or elder abuse services.
This bill requires that DHFS ensure that family care benefit and family care
services information, functional and financial screenings, and access for eligible
persons to protective services or protective placement and elder abuse services are
provided, rather than requiring that a family care resource center provide these.
Also, under the bill, persons who are residents of certain facilities and are members
of a target population served by a care management organization in the county must
receive this information.
Currently, DHFS must promulgate rules requiring a hospital to refer to a
family care resource center patients being discharged from the hospital who have
developmental disability or a physical disability requiring long-term care for at least
90 days, or who are 65 years of age or older. The rules must specify that the
requirement applies only if the secretary of health and family services has certified
that a resource center is available for the hospital and for individuals that include
the hospital's patients.
This bill eliminates the requirement that DHFS promulgate rules requiring a
hospital to refer patients to a resource center. Instead, the bill requires that a
resource center annually develop and provide to the local long-term care council for
review a tentative plan for coordinating appropriate referrals of individuals who are
discharged from hospitals in the area served by the resource center and who are
likely to be eligible for family care benefits. The local long-term care council must
review the tentative plan and provide to the resource center nonbinding plan
recommendations for ensuring cooperation and coordination between the resource
center and hospital. In turn, the resource center must consider the
recommendations and cooperate with hospitals in the geographic area served by the
resource center in developing and implementing the plan. Hospitals must
participate in the plan development and implementation if the secretary of health
and family services has certified that a resource center is available for the hospital
and for individuals that include the hospital's patients.
The bill clarifies that adult family homes, residential care apartment
complexes, and C-BRFs must refer persons with developmental disability to family
care resource centers for services and determinations of family care and other
program eligibility.
Currently, a county board of supervisors or, in a county with a county executive
or county administrator, that person, may create a family care district (a special
purpose district that is organized to operate a family care resource center or a care
management organization, but not both). The county board of supervisors or county
executive or county administrator also appoints the 15 members of the family care
district board, which is the governing body for the family care district. If a county
joins with one or more counties, the county board of supervisors of each county may
create a family care district, with a 21-member board. The lengths of terms of the
initial members of the family care district board are specified. Up to one-fourth of
the members may be elected or appointed officials or employees of the county. Also,
in each county that participates in family care, the county board must appoint a local
long-term care council, which develops the initial county plan for the structure of the
Family Care Program in that county.
This bill permits a county board of supervisors or a county executive or county
administrator to appoint only the initial members of a family care district board, and
requires that both the proposed creation of a family care district and the proposed
appointments to the family care district board be first reviewed and approved by the
secretary of health and family services. This limitation also applies to the county
boards of supervisors that join in creating a family care district. The local long-term
care council must also review the proposed initial members of the family care district
board and recommend to that secretary approval or disapproval of the proposed
membership. The bill authorizes members of the family care district board, once
initially appointed, to appoint successors to the board. The bill decreases the length
of the terms of the initial members and limits to less than one-fourth of the
membership the number of family care district board members who may be elected
or appointed county officials or county employees.
Under current law, after the secretary of health and family services has
certified that a family care resource center is available to provide family care services
in a county, C-BRFs and residential care apartment complexes in that county must
provide prospective residents with information about the family care benefit and
services of the resource center and must refer certain persons to a resource center.
In addition, C-BRFs must inform all prospective residents of the assessment
requirements for the receipt of COP services and services under CIP II for persons
who are relocated from certain institutions or who meet level-of-care requirements
for MA.
This bill requires that, beginning on January 1, 2002, except in a county in
which a resource center is available to provide family care services, a residential care
apartment complex inform prospective residents of the services of the county aging
unit, of the agency in the county that administers COP, and of conditions for
eligibility for public funding for long-term care services. Also, except in such a
county, a C-BRF must refer persons seeking admission to the C-BRF to the agency
in the county that administers COP. The bill authorizes COP funding to be used for
conducting preadmission consultations for persons seeking admission or about to be
admitted to a C-BRF.
Under current law, the benefit under family care is funded from a number of
sources, including federal and state moneys for those who are eligible for MA.
Moneys that are received from the recovery of family care correctly paid benefit
payments (commonly referred to as "estate recovery") are appropriated, in part, as
payments to care management organizations to provide the family care benefit.
This bill appropriates moneys that are received as estate recovery from family
care enrollees who are ineligible for MA to pay for administering the estate recovery
and to pay care management organizations to provide the family care benefit. With
respect to moneys that are received as estate recovery from family care enrollees who
are eligible for MA, the bill appropriates those moneys as part of the state share of
MA that is provided as the family care benefit.
Under family care, a client may contest specified matters, including estate
recovery and incorrectly paid benefit payments, by filing a written request for a
hearing with the division of hearings and appeals in DOA. The client must file the
request within 45 days of receiving notice of a decision in a contested matter or within
45 days of the failure by a resource center or care management organization under
family care to act on the matter under time frames specified by DHFS. DHFS also
must promulgate rules relating to estate recovery and the recovery of incorrectly
paid family care benefits that are substantially similar to MA recovery provisions.
This bill changes the time by which a family care client may contest certain
actions under family care to be within 45 days after the effective date of the action.
Further, the bill eliminates recovery of family care benefit payments as a matter that
may be contested within this time limitation.
Under current law, certain entities that may provide services that are similar
to those provided by a home health agency (such as care management organizations,
which operate under the Family Care Program for the provision of long-term care)
are exempt from the home health agency requirements. This bill expands the
exemptions from home health agency licensure and regulatory requirements to
include an entity with which a care management organization contracts to provide
services under the Family Care Program.
Mental health and developmental disabilities
Under current law, DHFS approves and otherwise regulates public and private
treatment facilities for the provision of services for mental illness, developmental
disability, and alcohol and other drug abuse. DHFS may, after notice and hearing,
grant, suspend, revoke, or limit such an approval, and a court may restrain violations
of conditions of approval or standards of care by treatment facilities; review denials,
restrictions, or revocations of approval; and grant other enforcement relief.
This bill specifies sanctions that DHFS may impose on treatment facilities for
violations of conditions of approval or standards of care; these sanctions are similar
to those that DHFS may, under the bill, impose on facilities or services regulated by
DHFS that provide medical care. Under the bill, if DHFS provides a treatment
facility with written notice of the grounds for a sanction, an explanation of the types
of sanctions that DHFS may impose, and an explanation of the appeal process, DHFS
may impose any of the following:
1. A daily forfeiture (civil penalty) of not less than $10 nor more than $2,000
for each violation, with each day of violation being a separate offense; the amount of
the forfeiture and payment deadlines are specified by DHFS by rule, based on the
size of the treatment facility and the seriousness of the violation, and may be
increased if there is continued failure to comply with a DHFS order.
2. Suspension of approval.
3. Under specified circumstances, revocation of approval.
The bill specifies procedures for requesting a hearing to contest a forfeiture,
suspension, or revocation.
Currently, the Northern Center for the Developmentally Disabled, Southern
Center for the Developmentally Disabled, and Central Center for the
Developmentally Disabled are operated by DHFS to provide various services to
persons with developmental disability and to return those persons to the community
when appropriate.
This bill authorizes DHFS to allow a center for the developmentally disabled
to offer, when DHFS determines that community services need to be supplemented,
short-term residential services, dental and mental health services, physical therapy,
psychiatric and psychological services, general medical services, pharmacy services,
and orthotics. These services may be provided only under a contract between DHFS
and specified entities to persons who are referred by the entity. Further, the services
are governed by the terms of the contract or by statutes or administrative rules that
regulate facilities, govern certain mental health services, and provide mental health
patient rights. In the event of a conflict between contract provisions and these
statutes or rules, the services must comply with the contractual, statutory, or rules
provision that is most protective of the health, safety, welfare, or rights of the
recipient of the services, as determined by the center for the developmentally
disabled. Specified mental health statutes, including emergency detention and
commitment laws, and zoning and other county, city, town, or village ordinances, do
not apply to provision of the services.
Currently, the state centers for the developmentally disabled must provide
services for up to 36 persons with developmental disability who are also diagnosed
as mentally ill or who exhibit extremely aggressive and challenging behaviors. This
bill increases to up to 50 the number of persons with developmental disability and
mental illness or extreme behaviors that the state centers for the developmentally
disabled must serve.
Under current law, if a court during a trial for a criminal offense has reason to
doubt the defendant's competency to proceed, the court must order the defendant to
be examined, on an inpatient or outpatient basis, as determined by DHFS. For an
inpatient examination, the court must arrange for the defendant's transportation to
and from the examining facility. Also under current law, a county department of
community programs may not reimburse a state institution for care provided by the
institution to certain persons, including criminal defendants who are ordered to be
examined by mental health institutes for competency to undergo trial.
This bill requires that, for a defendant in a criminal trial who has been ordered
to receive an examination for mental competency to undergo trial, the sheriff of the
defendant's county of residence must transport the defendant to and from the
examining facility. The bill requires that a county department of community
programs reimburse a mental health institute at the institute's daily rate for all days
of custody of a county resident who is examined for competency to proceed in a
criminal trial, beginning 48 hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal
holidays) after the sheriff and county department receive notice that the
examination has been completed.
Under current law, DHFS must distribute not more than $350,000 in federal
funds in each fiscal year to counties to assist in relocating individuals with mental
illness from institutional or residential care to less restrictive and more
cost-effective community settings and services.
This bill eliminates the limitation on federal funding; reduces from five years
to three years the maximum grant period; permits the grants to be made to entities
other than counties; and requires that the funds be used for recovery-oriented
mental health system changes, prevention and early intervention strategies, and
consumer and family involvement. The bill requires that community services
developed under a grant be continued following grant termination by use of savings
made available from incorporating recovery, prevention and early intervention
strategies, and consumer and family involvement in the services, rather than by use
of funding made available from reduced use of institutional and residential care.
Other health and human services
Under current law, the state registrar or local registrars (the county registers
of deeds or city registrars) may publish in a public index information from a birth
certificate that is not changed or impounded concerning the name, sex, date and
place of birth, and parents' names for a person whose mother was unmarried for the
period from the child's conception to birth. This bill limits the information that may
be filed in public indexes of marriage documents or of certificates of birth, death,
divorce, or annulment to the registrant's full name, date of the event, county of
occurrence, county of residence, and, at the discretion of the state registrar, the file
number. Further, under the bill, for births that occur after September 30, 1907,
certificate of birth index information may be copied or reproduced for the public only
if 100 years have elapsed since the birth. Indexes of certificates of death, divorce, or
annulment may be copied or reproduced for the public after 24 months from the year
in which the event occurred, but certain information on the certificate of death itself
may not be inspected by or disclosed to anyone for 50 years after the date of death,
except to a person who has a direct and tangible interest in the death.
Current law specifies procedures by which the state registrar may, without a
court order, change incorrect information or insert omitted information on a vital
record or must, under a court order, make those changes. Current law also requires
that a certificate of birth for every birth in this state be filed within five days after
the birth in the registration district in which the birth occurs. This bill specifies
procedures for the state or a local registrar to follow in recording changed
information on a vital record, including special procedures the state registrar, under
a court order, must use to correct facts misrepresented by an informant for a
certificate of birth. The bill prohibits the state registrar from making changes on a
birth certificate, without a court order, to add or delete the name of a parent or change
the identity of a parent. The bill requires that the state registrar, rather than the
local registrar, register births.
Currently, a funeral director, a member of a decedent's immediate family, or a
person authorized to dispose of unclaimed corpses or anatomically to study donated
bodies who moves a corpse must, within 24 hours after the death, file certain
information on a death certificate. The funeral director, family member, or person
must forward the certificate to the decedent's attending physician or, for certain
deaths (for example, homicides), to a coroner or medical examiner to provide a
description of the cause of death on a separate medical certification section on the
death certificate. This bill requires that, beginning January 1, 2003, a certificate of
death consist of three parts that contain: 1) fact-of-death information (the name and
other identifiers of the decedent, including the decedent's social security number; the
date, time, and place that the decedent was pronounced dead; the manner of death;
the identity of the person certifying the death; and the dates of certification and filing
of the death certificate); 2) extended fact-of-death information (all the previous
information, plus injury-related data and information on final disposition and cause
of death); 3) statistical-only information (all other information that is collected on
the standard death record form recommended by the federal agency responsible for
national vital statistics and other data, as directed by the state registrar, including
race, educational background, and health-risk behavior).
Under current law, the state or a local registrar must collect specified fees for
issuing various documents and for making alterations administratively and as
ordered by a court. This bill increases the amounts that the state registrar or a local
registrar may charge as fees for issuing an additional certified copy of a vital record.
The bill authorizes charging for issuing additional copies of uncertified vital records
and for expedited service in issuing a vital record. The bill clarifies that fees must
be charged for making any change that is court ordered, that is administrative, or
that is a recision of a statement acknowledging paternity. The bill also authorizes
charging a reasonable fee for providing searches of vital records and copies of vital
records to state agencies for program use.
Under current law, after persons apply for a marriage license, a county clerk
who receives the sworn statement of either of the applicants must correct erroneous,
false, or insufficient statements in the marriage license or in the application and
must show the corrected statement to the other applicant. This bill changes this
procedure to require a county clerk who is notified in writing by a marriage applicant
that information provided for the license is erroneous to notify the other applicant
as soon as reasonably possible and, if the marriage license has not been issued, to
prepare a new license with the correct information entered; if the marriage license
has been issued, the clerk must immediately send a letter of correction to the state
registrar. Also, under the bill, if the clerk discovers that correct information has been
entered erroneously on the marriage license, he or she must prepare a new license
if the marriage license has not been issued, or must immediately send a letter of
correction to the state registrar to amend the erroneous information if the marriage
license has been issued.
Under current law, the marriage document must contain the social security
number of each party, as well as any other informational items that DHFS
determines are necessary. This bill requires that the marriage document consist of
the marriage license and the marriage license worksheet, and that the latter contain
the social security number and other information items determined by DHFS to be
necessary and to agree in the main with the standard form recommended by the
federal agency responsible for national vital statistics.
Currently, following a paternity action, the court must notify the state registrar
of necessary changes to the child's birth certificate that result from the paternity
action. This bill authorizes the county child support agency also to so notify the state
registrar.
Currently, "vital records" means certificates of birth, death, divorce, or
annulment, marriage documents, and related data. This bill expands the definition
of "vital records" to include worksheets or electronic transmissions that use forms of
electronic file formats that are approved by the state registrar and related to birth,
death, divorce, or annulment certificates or marriage documents.
Under current law, DHFS must collect health care information from health care
providers, including physicians, hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers, and
must analyze and disseminate that information in the form of standard reports,
public use data files, and custom-designed reports. DHFS may release only those
public use data files that do not permit the identification of specific patients,
employers, or health care providers. DHFS must also prohibit purchasers of data
from rereleasing individual data elements of health care data files. This bill
eliminates the latter requirement.
Current law requires DHFS to develop and submit various reports and plans
to other state agencies, the governor, or the legislature. This bill permits, rather than
requires, DHFS to submit the following:
1. Annually, a plan to address hunger in the state and to relieve hunger in
populations currently experiencing hunger to the governor, the state superintendent
of public instruction, and the legislature.
2. Annually, a report on the expenditure of funds for providing primary health
services and mental health services to homeless individuals to the legislature.
3. A plan for developmental disability services in the state, and biennial
updates to the plan, to the governor, standing committees of the legislature with
jurisdiction over developmental disability issues, and JCF.
4. A report on DHFS's progress in implementing an early intervention services
program to the legislature.
5. A report on DHFS's activities relating to the treatment of alcoholism to the
governor.
Under current law, before DOA may approve any payments to counties for
providing supportive, personal, or nursing services to individuals who reside in a
certified residential care apartment complex, DHFS must submit an annual report
on the statewide medical assistance daily cost of nursing home care to DOA for
review and approval. If DOA approves the report, DOA may make the payments to
counties. This bill makes submission of the report optional and eliminates the
requirement that DOA approve the report before DOA may make the payments to
counties.
Current law requires the council on physical disabilities to submit to the
legislature recommendations on matters relating to physically disabled individuals
and requires the council on mental health to submit to DHFS, the governor, and the
legislature policy recommendations in the area of mental health. The bill permits,
rather than requires, the council on physical disabilities and the council on mental
health to submit the reports.
Under current law, DWD collects and distributes all moneys received for child
or family support and maintenance (formerly called alimony). If amounts received
cannot be distributed, such as when a payee has not notified DWD of a new address,
or if amounts received are distributed but go unclaimed, such as when a check that
is sent to a payee is not cashed within one year of the check's issuance, those amounts
are considered to be abandoned or unclaimed property. DWD must deliver to the
state treasurer those funds that remain unclaimed after public notice. The state
treasurer deposits all abandoned or unclaimed property in the school fund, and
anyone claiming an interest in abandoned or unclaimed property may file a claim
with the state treasurer to obtain the property.
Under this bill, DWD may retain to pay for its own expenses in administering
the child support program all amounts received for support that cannot be
distributed or that are not claimed by payees. At least quarterly, DWD must
reimburse the state treasurer for the state treasurer's administrative expenses, and
for any claims that are paid, with respect to that property.
Under current law, if a person owes an outstanding amount for past child or
family support or for medical or birth expenses, or is delinquent in making
court-ordered child or family support or maintenance payments, the amount that
the person owes may be withheld from any state income tax refund or credit owed
to the person. Also under current law, if a court orders a person to pay child or family
support or maintenance, the court must order the person to pay to DWD an annual
receiving and disbursing fee (R&D fee) of $25, in every year for which maintenance,
child support, or family support payments are ordered, to pay for DWD's costs
associated with receiving and disbursing the maintenance, child support, or family
support and maintaining a record of the receipts and disbursements.
This bill increases the R&D fee to $35, beginning with R&D fees payable in
2002, and provides that a person paying the R&D fee must pay it not only in every
year for which maintenance, child support, or family support payments are ordered
but also in every year in which the person owes an arrearage in any of those
payments. The bill provides that, if a person is delinquent in paying the R&D fee,
the delinquent amount may be withheld from any state income tax refund or credit
owed to the person upon certification of the delinquency by DWD to DOR. Before the
refund or credit may be withheld, however, the person is entitled to a court hearing
on whether he or she owes the amount that DWD certified to DOR. The bill also
requires DWD to study what it would cost DWD to operate the statewide receipt and
disbursement system, which is currently operated by a private party under contract
with, and paid by, DWD.
Current law permits a nonprofit corporation that contracts with DHFS to
provide social services on the basis of a unit rate per service provided to retain a
certain percentage of any surplus that is generated by those services, and to use that
retained surplus to cover any deficit incurred in any preceding or future contract
period or to address the programmatic needs of its clients. This bill permits a county
department that contracts with DHFS to provide social services on that basis to
retain any surplus generated by those services provided and to use that retained
surplus in the same way that a nonprofit corporation is permitted to retain and use
such a surplus under current law. The bill, however, prohibits a county department
or a nonprofit corporation providing social services in Milwaukee County from
retaining a surplus from revenues that are used to meet the maintenance-of-effort
requirement under the federal TANF program.
Under current law, the adolescent pregnancy prevention and pregnancy
services board (APPPS board), which is attached to DHFS for administrative
purposes, must award grants to organizations that provide pregnancy prevention
programs or pregnancy services to persons under 18 years of age. An organization
that receives a grant from the APPPS board must provide matching funds equal to
20% of the grant amount awarded, but may not use any moneys received from the
state government toward meeting that matching funds requirement. This bill
prohibits an organization that receives a grant from the APPPS board from using
moneys received from the federal, as well as the state, government toward meeting
the matching funds requirement under the grant. The bill also transfers the APPPS
board from DHFS to DOA for administrative purposes.
Under current law, DHFS, or a local health department that acts as an agent
of DHFS, issues permits for the operation of hotels, restaurants, temporary
restaurants, tourist rooming houses, bed and breakfast establishments, vending
machine commissaries, vending machines, campgrounds, camping resorts,
recreational and educational camps, and public swimming pools. DHFS must
promulgate rules establishing permit fees, preinspection fees, and late fees (DHFS
fees) for untimely permit renewal for those establishments that DHFS directly
regulates. For establishments that are directly regulated by a local health
department that is granted agency status by DHFS, however, the local health
department must establish its own fees and must impose both its own fees and fees
(entitled "state fees"). The state fees may be no more than 20% of the DHFS fees and
must be reimbursed to DHFS. This bill requires that, for establishments that DHFS
directly regulates, DHFS promulgate rules establishing additional DHFS fees for
reinspection, operating without a permit, comparable compliance or variance
requests, and pre-permit review of restaurant plans.
Currently, a permit to operate a restaurant that operates at a fixed location in
conjunction with an event such as a fair (a "temporary restaurant") may be applied
to a premises other than that for which it was issued if DHFS or a local health
department approves. A person who operates a bed and breakfast establishment for
more than ten nights in a calendar year must obtain a biennial permit from DHFS.
DHFS or a local health department that acts as an agent of DHFS may not without
a preinspection provide a permit for operation of a new, or newly operated, hotel,
tourist rooming house, bed and breakfast establishment, restaurant, or vending
machine commissary.
This bill eliminates the authority of DHFS or a local health department to
approve applying the permit for a temporary restaurant to a location other than that
for which it was originally issued. The bill requires that a person operating a bed and
breakfast establishment for more than ten nights in a calendar year obtain an
annual, rather than a biennial, permit from DHFS. The bill prohibits DHFS or a
local health department acting as a DHFS agent from providing, without a
preinspection, a permit for operation for a new, or newly operated, public swimming
pool, campground, or recreational or educational camp.
Under current law, DHFS may recover from property left by a decedent who
received certain benefits, such as MA, up to the amount that DHFS paid on behalf
of the decedent for the benefits. If the decedent's solely owned property in this state
does not exceed $20,000 in value, no person has commenced a procedure for
administering the decedent's estate, and the decedent is not survived by a spouse,
disabled child, or child under the age of 21, DHFS may receive the decedent's
property by presenting the person who has the property with an affidavit showing
that the requirements for DHFS's recovery of benefits paid are fulfilled. DHFS is
prohibited, however, from collecting from any of the decedent's property that consists
of interests in or liens on real property; wearing apparel; jewelry; household
furniture, furnishings, or appliances; motor vehicles; or recreational vehicles.
This bill eliminates this prohibition and, instead, requires DHFS to reduce the
amount that it may recover by up to a specified amount (currently, $5,000), if the
reduction is necessary to allow the decedent's heirs to retain property of the decedent
consisting of wearing apparel and jewelry held for personal use; household furniture,
furnishings, and appliances; and other tangible personal property, worth up to
$3,000, not used in trade, agriculture, or other business.
