MNsure's newly adopted budget for fiscal 2017 includes tapping an extra $4 million in federal grant money for IT improvements and business development.
That means the state's health insurance exchange will end up using all $189.3 million in grant money the federal government previously awarded for creating the online marketplace, said Shane Delaney, a MNsure spokesman.
A preliminary budget this spring would have left $4 million in grant money on the table, because the exchange didn't have time to spend the remaining federal funds before a year-end deadline for grant expenditures. But MNsure has since received a deadline extension for using grant money.
"It's not new funding. ... We simply now have more time to spend it," Delaney said via e-mail.
The MNsure board adopted the budget during a board meeting Wednesday in St. Paul.
For the fiscal year that started July 1, the exchange is drawing on money from three sources: federal grants ($15 million); a premium tax (about $12.8 million); and the state Department of Human Services (about $14 million).
DHS uses the MNsure system for enrolling people in public health insurance programs. Board member Emily Johnson Piper, who also is the DHS commissioner, voted against the budget, saying she wants to renegotiate how costs are split between MNsure and DHS.
Minnesota launched the health insurance exchange in late 2013 as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
