4004

VETOES

This bill requires the Departments of Health and
Mental Hygiene and Education jointly to develop and make
available standards and guidelines for a program to
screen the speech and hearing of all children residing in
the State before they reach the age of three. The local
health and education agencies are required to "implement
and maintain these preschool speech and hearing screening
procedures." The bill has an effective date of July 1,
1975.

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
estimates that, in the first year of operation (fiscal
year 1976), 118,000 children will have to be screened by
virtue of House Bill 691 at a cost of $8.00 per child.
The gross cost would therefore be $944,000, of which the
State's share would be $493,600. An additional $80,000
in administrative expenses for the two State agencies is
estimated to be necessary to implement the bill, making
the total cost to the State for the first year $573,600.
The Department of Fiscal Services has estimated this
total cost at $550,800, with a concomitant cost to the
subdivisions of $386,800.

I am advised that speech and hearing screening
services are presently available on a referral basis
within the local health departments, and that the State
Department of Education conducts such a program for
children entering the first and ninth grades.

Certainly, the program provided for in this bill is
a worthwhile one. The problem is simply that, with the
fiscal constraints presently upon the State, which all
evidence indicates will likely continue for the
foreseeable future, we will be hard pressed to maintain
even existing human needs programs. The inauguration of
new programs carrying this magnitude of fiscal impact
will, of economic necessity, have to be deferred unless
the General Assembly is willing and able to provide a new
source of funding for them.

For these reasons, I have vetoed House Bill 691.

Sincerely,

/s/ Marvin Mandel

Governor

House Bill No. 707 — Smoking in Elevators
AN ACT concerning