Comptroller SUSANA MENDOZA warned the day of reckoning was coming when it came to paying state bills, when all of those court orders, consent decrees and state laws requiring automatic payments would outstrip the cash available to meet them all.
That day effectively came Wednesday when a federal judge said Medicaid providers needed to get paid more and faster than they have been. She didn’t say how it should be done. She left that to Mendoza to work out with attorneys for the Medicaid providers.
The state is paying in full for pensions and debt service, and also a large part of K-12 spending. Any of those areas could be possibilities for coming up with money to meet the latest court order. Or maybe they’ll figure out some other way to shift money into payments for Medicaid.
