Droves of mental health advocates say ‘no’ to budget cuts

 

After hearing tearful and emotional testimony from more than 60 people, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on April 22 gave Alcohol Drug and Mental Health the last allotment of $2.6 million to cover this year’s departmental budget shortfall.

But as the 2008 fiscal year comes to a close, all parties involved in county mental health programs are cringing at the 2008-09 budget proposed by ADMHS.

Following a hearing that lasted nearly six hours, the board of supervisors unanimously voted to receive the 2008-09 ADMHS budget, but directed the county staff to come up with alternatives and better options to ease some of the proposed cuts.

“I’m hoping we can continue to look at what we’re proposing now and see what other options there are,” said 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal. “This is an extraordinary circumstance that requires extraordinary measures.”

 

About 130 mental health advocates, consumers and members from community based organizations that serve mentally ill clients filled both the Santa Barbara board hearing room and the Betteravia board hearing room in Santa Maria, to voice their opposition to the $8.4 million in cuts the mental health department is proposing for next year.

The budget cuts could eliminate 140 mental health staff positions, curtail and cut services for more than 600 clients and shut down a number of mental health residential programs throughout the county. CBOs also could lose $5.9 million next year, a loss many program directors say will handicap if not all together discontinue services, a loss many mental health consumers say could be the difference between life and death.

Walter Larkin, a mental health patient who receives services through the mental health transitions program Telecare, said he was on the verge of committing suicide six years ago.

 

“If it hadn’t been for Telecare coming into my life and helping me…I would have been dead a long time ago,” he said, while abating tears. “In the last couple years I have gained my independence…through the help of Telecare I have my own home and am back in school.”

The budget cuts could tear all of us up, if you cut these programs you’re going to hurt a lot of people who depend on these places, he said.

The outpour of opposition at the board meeting is part of a stop the cuts campaign that has been in full force for several months, since the board first decided to give the mental health department $6.9 million over a three month period to remedy the almost $7 million deficit the department was facing in the current fiscal year. This fiscal year ends in June and the 2009 fiscal year will begin in July.

 

Ann Detrick, director of ADMHS, attributed the cuts to shortages in Realignment Funding, which is derived from a half a cent tax that is imposed on the state vehicle license fee, drop in Cost of Living Adjustments, loss of MediCal funding, uninsured patients and the increasing cost of serving mentally ill patients. 

Detrick said all of these factors were prompting the department to restructure its adult mental health services.

“These have been very, very hard decisions,” she said. “The reality is that there is not enough money to support current programs.”

 County CEO Mike Brown reminded the board of the state crises and said that many counties across the state is dealing with similar if not worse deficits and cuts.

 

Brown said some of the causes of decreased state funding include the housing slump, sagging sales tax revenue, rising fuel costs and a slump in the building industry.

Regardless of the woeful financial situation of the state and the impacts it’s having on various counties, mental health advocates are adamant that there are better options than slaughtering programs.

Mike Foley, executive director of Casa Esperanza in Santa Barbara, urged and pleaded with the board to explore other options than to cut what he called the “vital” lifelines of many mental health patients.

“Because of our mission, because we promise to care about and advocate for those living with mental illness,

“We have no choice, absolutely no choice but to passionately and strongly ring those alarm bells that you and everyone else in this community need to hear…when hundreds of people may loose the services they need it’s not supposed to be comfortable.”

Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf and Carbajal made it clear that they wanted county staff to “get creative” in finding better solutions than such drastic cuts.

Wolf called the cuts a “dismantling” of vital programs.

 

“I look at this as something that is very large and is going to affect people’s lives,” she said. “I just wish with all my heart that these cuts would not be so big…if you make the cuts now you’re dismantling the program…why don’t we keep what we have in place and keep people’s lives together.”

The board of supervisors has until July to adopt a new 2008-09 budget, at that time cuts will begin to be implemented. In the meantime, county staff, supervisors, consumers and advocates of mental health will meet and attempt to strike even ground with an alternative budget than the one proposed. Brown recommended that everyone get involved in exploring a myriad of options to ease cuts to the department, including instituting fees and introducing tax initiatives.

“Everyone needs to work on this clinically, professionally and technically, advocacy is one thing but maybe being smart is something new,” he said.