Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday that a deal with the House and Senate on funding for the Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) has cleared the way for him to withdraw an executive order slashing provider rates by 15 percent.
“I’ll be pulling my emergency order and making sure that our providers have the funds they need to make sure they keep taking care of this group of individuals that really need this care,” Scott said.
The governor didn’t elaborate on the terms of the deal, but it would presumably help to close a deficit that Scott’s chief inspector general pegged at $174.3 million. Scott said APD and his administration were working to make sure the agency doesn’t overspend its budget again.
“We’re putting a lot of effort into making sure that — we want to take care of this group of people, and we’ve got to spend the dollars as well as we can so we don’t end up running a deficit next year,” he said.
