Testimony in Opposition to House Bill 7322, An Act Concerning State and Local Revenue

[David V. Hunter]

Testimony to the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee

In Opposition to

House Bill 7322, An Act Concerning State and Local Revenue

Submitted by David V. Hunter, President & CEO, The Mary Wade Home

April 25, 2017

On behalf of The Mary Wade Home in New Haven, I respectfully submit the following testimony in strong opposition to House Bill 7322, An Act Concerning State and Local Revenue, which in Section 31 proposes to remove the sales tax exemption for not-for-profit nursing homes, not-for profit residential care homes, and all other 501(c)(3) organizations.

Mary Wade is a not-for-profit, full service Senior Living Community that has provided quality and compassionate care and assistance to the older adults and their families in our community since 1866. As a not-for-profit organization, we carefully manage our financial resources in accordance with our mission, a task that is becoming more and more difficult every year. We operate on a very thin financial margin and we reinvest that margin into our organization so as to continue to provide the benefit of mission driven care, services and supports to those we serve.  This deficit requires daily challenges to continue to provide the benefit of mission driven care, services and supports to those we serve.  The additional tax burden proposed by House Bill 7322 would be detrimental to our financial stability and the ability to fulfill our mission.

As a provider of Medicaid services, we allocate a significant amount of resources to subsidize the care and services that we provide to our Medicaid clients. The state Medicaid reimbursement consistently underfunds the cost of the high level of care, services and supports that we deliver. In fact, due to the challenges faced by the CT Department of Social Services, our costs in the skilled nursing center exceed the current Medicaid rate by $91.00 per day.   By subsidizing the Medicaid reimbursement so as to maintain that high level of service, we currently provide a great benefit to the state, to those we serve who are enrolled in the Medicaid program, and to the Connecticut taxpayer. This reality also challenges our ability to service older adults and their families in our other community-based services, such as transportation, adult day health center and non-medical home care services.

Our ability to continue to invest in and provide the high level of care and services that our community has come to expect will be severely hindered by this additional tax burden. We ask that you reject this proposal and continue to support the not-for-profit health care and aging service providers in the state.

I make myself available to you in the event you have further questions about the complexities and challenges involved in serving this population under the current circumstances.

Respectfully submitted,

David V. Hunter, President & CEO

The Mary Wade Home

118 Clinton Avenue, New Haven, CT 06510