Minnesota agreed to boost PCA wages - but who's going to actually pay for it?

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – Minnesota has agreed to give its home health care workers a raise, but people in the industry say the state hasn't committed the funding to cover those costs.

All sides agree that Minnesota's personal care assistant shortage is at crisis level with thousands of open jobs.

It was a win for health care workers this month when the state agreed to a nearly $5-an-hour raise. But now that Gov. Tim Walz has revealed his budget, PCA providers say there's a problem.

"If you raise wages by a dollar, you would think you'd have to put a dollar towards that," said Andre Best with the Minnesota First Provider Alliance. Best also owns Best Home Care.

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He says the state's reimbursement rate to providers is not set to keep up with the wage increases, which means those costs will likely fall to providers like Sheri Steele.

Steele is shuttering her Brooklyn Center business, HopeCare PCA Inc., after 13 years of providing home health care services.

"Older folks have a really special place in my heart," Steele said. "I love working with our seniors. I really wish it wouldn't have come to this, but financially, I'm depleted. I just don't know how to make it work."  

Steele says it's a difficult industry to stay afloat in.

"It's a reality that a smaller provider just won't be able to make it," Best said.

Providers shuttering raises questions about what happens to the clients and the care they need.

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"If the state cannot keep up with it, I don't know where the industry is headed in Minnesota," Steele said. "It doesn't look good."

Best says there's time to find more funding, but he wants to sound the alarm.

The Department of Human Services released this statement on the matter:

Personal Care Assistant (PCA) services are vital to the health and well-being of the people who use them and in the last several years, DHS has prioritized PCA investments. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor's current budget proposal recommends innovative changes in the way services are paid for to incorporate workers' experience levels as a strategy to enhance the workforce and retain workers. To reverse decades-long underinvestment in PCA services, the legislature could consider other strategies incorporating additional investments to account for increases in costs to these critical services.