Thanks to efforts to reduce Arkansas' Medicaid spending and enrollment, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said, his request for federal and state funding for the program during the fiscal year that starts July 1 will be about $478 million lower than what he had first planned.
The reduction would bring the budget for the state Medicaid program in fiscal 2019 to about $7.5 billion -- about $55 million less than the state budgeted this fiscal year.
Compared with initial projections, the revised funding request for 2019 will include $423.1 million less in federal funds and $54.8 million less in state funds, including a $47 million reduction in requested general revenue. Individual income taxes and sales and use taxes are the two largest sources of state general revenue.