Mental Health Providers Join Together to Battle Proposed State Funding Cuts

State Cuts = False Savings

Gov. Baldacci's proposal to close a $1.1 billion deficit by cutting state spending unfairly and disproportionately targets Maine's most vulnerable citizens, according to leaders of mental health service providers who have joined together to fight the cuts.

The governor's budget proposal dramatically cuts ö or in some cases ö eliminates mental health services to Maine children and families. While the stated principles the governor developed in drafting his budget sought to distribute reduction of spending fairly and equitably across all sectors, the group says, this budget disproportionately affects children ö those who are least able to articulate the pain of these actions on their lives.

By reducing its commitment to fund a community system of care, the governor's budget simply shifts a greater proportion of the costs and responsibility onto local communities. And the cuts will have an enormous impact on the most vulnerable in Maine, according to leaders representing social service agencies throughout the state.

"The funding proposals affect children and families at risk, and community agencies are working together to lessen this," said Leslie Brancato, Executive Director of Community Counseling Center. "It's our hope that legislators and others will see the long-term impact these cuts will have on the children and families we serve every day."

The effects of the budget proposal for working families who don't have health insurance to cover these illnesses are devastating, she said. The budget, even with some last minute attempts to "restore" some funds, proposes to:

Eliminate early intervention and prevention; finding problems early and stopping them from getting more severe and more expensive to treat.

• Elimination of Community Support Services for 520 non-MaineCare youth and 800 homeless youth.
  
• A 50 percent reduction in Respite Care in 2005 will mean more than 1,000 families needing an occasional break from caring for profoundly disabled children will not get it, forcing some of them to place their children in much more costly residential care. Respite care has already been cut and the waiting lists are long.
  
• A 50 percent reduction in Family Mediation means more than 300 children and families who are attempting to keep their families together will be unable to get help until the situation becomes unbearable.
  
• Elimination of Information and Referral services for parents needing help ö more than 40,000 requests ö will not be honored because of this cut.

Eliminate support for children and families who face severe emotional or behavioral disturbances.

• Elimination of Case Management services for 445 non-MaineCare children.
  
• Elimination of Outpatient Mental Health services for more than 880 children needing treatment for sexual abuse, deafness and other significant trauma. Children suffering from serious mental health challenges (who are not Medicaid eligible) will not get these services.

Eliminate services to children with isolating and difficult problems, such as services to deaf children and for victims of sexual abuse.

Maine's Community Mental Health System is at risk:

• Cuts to community based Children's Services in FY '04-'05 total over $30,000,000, including federal Medicaid match (federal Medicaid match is approximately $2 for every $1 Maine spends).
  
• This is not only a loss in services to Maine's most vulnerable families; it is also a loss to the fragile Maine economy.
  
• these resources, people in Maine's cities and towns will suffer. Cuts in Community Support to children and adults alone could mean elimination of vital services to thousands of people.

Budget cuts in the community will shift costs to more expensive settings, often at local expense:

• People who lose community support services will need to turn to hospitals, jails and other more costly services for their "safety net".
  
• Effective Community Support can be delivered for as little as $11 per day per client. In contrast, a crisis bed can cost $300 per day, a hospital bed up to $1,000 per day.
  
• Real costs will be transferred to local counties and municipalities in terms of increased police response and jail usage, additional homelessness, and added burdens for local welfare offices.

The budget cuts focus reduction of services on non-Medicaid recipients, a population with no safety net. They include:

• The homeless,
  
• Seniors and disabled people on Medicare,
  
• People with severe mental illness being released from jails, and
  
• Working families who don't have insurance to cover these illnesses.

These cuts will prove detrimental to people across the state, and to agencies providing these services.

This effort to alert the public is collectively coordinated by Community Counseling Center; Sweetser; Youth Alternatives; Ingraham; Catholic Charities Maine, the United Way of Greater Portland and other members of the Maine Association of Mental Health Services and the Local Service Network (LSN).

For more information about the direct impact on individuals and families or agencies, please contact Erin O'Connor Jones, VP of Communications at Youth Alternatives, (207) 874-1175; Heather Chandler at Sweetser, (207) 294-4454; or Leslie Brancato, the Executive Director at Community Counseling Center, (207) 874-1030.

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