The Guernsey-Muskingum County Boards of Developmental Disabilities met with Muskingum County Auditor, Debra Nye, and the Muskingum County Commissioners to discuss appropriation changes for the Medicaid Match program.

The services that the Board of DD offers in the community are funded by Medicaid. The board is then required to pay roughly 40 percent of the costs back to the government who then distributes it to the providers for the services, Kellie Brown the Superintendent for the Guernsey-Muskingum County Boards of Developmental Disabilities, said.

“We realized we did not have on books where we had that money set aside in appropriations, which is required by law and that needs to be certified by the auditor,” Brown said. “So, since we were transferring so much money at one time to a line item and re-appropriating money we wanted to make sure the commissioners, in case they had questions about that transfer, that we were all right here to answer those questions.”

The organization met with the auditor previously to discuss what needed to be done in order to receive certification. If the county board was unable to pay that Medicaid Match appropriation to the federal government, the bill would fall onto the county commissioners.

“There’s a requirement that, that money is set aside so that it would not fall back on the commissioners,” Brown said.

The county boards had the money in other appropriations but made an additional appropriation to cover the bill.