In one last hurrah, Perdue took $20 million from DHHS, or the Medicaid budget, and redistributed it to the Pre-K Program, formerly known as More at Four. The Medicaid budget is extremely tight as it is; the budget cannot even cover all the Medicaid services, much less fund another program.

At the end of the last fiscal year, the General Assembly needed to appropriate an additional $212 million to Medicaid to cover a budget shortfall that had grown over the previous year.

NC Secretary of DHHS, Al Delia, stated that the $20 million came from the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, foster-care services, funding reversions and unspent salaries.  Which begs the question, if there were unspent monies in the Medicaid budget, why did DHHS ask the General Assembly a few months ago for $212 million to finish the fiscal year?

Although it is important to note that Perdue was acting via a Court Order. Personally, I’d like to see the Court Order. I’d like to see whether the Order ordered the funds to come from DHHS. Because Medicaid funding is the one of last budgets I would dip into.