This amendment decreases funding in the Department of Medical Assistance Services based on the recent November 2014 Medicaid forecast. Medicaid expenditures are expected to increase in fiscal year 2015 by 4.6 percent and in fiscal year 2016 by 5.3 percent. Projected expenditures are lower than amounts budgeted during the 2014 Special Session I. This appropriation change was not made in the introduced budget because the funding was allocated to the Governor's Healthy Virginia initiative. A companion amendment provides authority to implement a program to provide behavioral health services and prescription medicine to individuals with serious mental illness with incomes at or below 60 percent of the federal poverty level and to address the health safety net.