The Senate is debating legislation that would appropriate $32.5 million to help put more than 17,000 more children under the age of 18 on the rolls of Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income people.

The money in the bill is significantly scaled down from the original version of the legislation, which Gov. Bill Richardson has touted as one of the major priorities of the special session. The original bill had appropriated $58 million. But many lawmakers around the Roundhouse are worried that the state doesn’t have enough money. And the governor’s office trimmed the amount of money in the proposal to appease them. The money for the expansion will come from what economists say will be a surplus in the state’s operating expenses at the end of this fiscal year, or June 30.

Of the $32.5 million, the new bill would direct $20 million toward putting more uninsured children on the state’s Medicaid rolls. The legislation also would direct $10 million toward reducing the waiting list for the state’s Developmentally Disabled program, which currently has a waiting list of more than 4,000 individuals. The $10 million would help get around 450 individuals off the waiting list and into the program, state officials said.

The bill also would appropriate $2.5 million toward behavioral health services, which works with individuals with mental illness or substance abuse.

The $32.5 million bill is meeting with resistance from lawmakers who are questioning some of the expenses.