Let’s be realistic: If anything, the odds of Kentucky’s regional mental health programs securing $75 million in new state funding in the two-year budget that will be enacted by the 2010 General Assembly are probably worse than they were two years ago when the Kentucky Association of Regional Mental Health Programs first made the request.
After all, despite the 2008 General Assembly doubling the state tax on cigarettes and hiking the tax on retail alcohol sales, Kentucky’s revenue picture is as dire today — if not more dire — than it was two years ago. And in 2008, legislators never seriously considered adding $75 million in funding for mental health programs. The 14 regional programs like Pathways should expect a similar response when legislators gather in Frankfort in January to begin work on the next two-year budget.
However, just because the mental health centers have been unsuccessful in convincing legislators to approve such a hefty increase in funding does not mean the three years of meetings mental health professionals have had with legislators across the state have been a waste of time.
Just the opposite, in fact. While not getting $75 million in new funding, mental health programs have been spared the worst of the funding cuts imposed by Frankfort during the last two years. The regional meetings with legislators — one of which was hosted Monday by Pathways Inc. and Comprehend Inc. in Grayson — have helped lawmakers better understand the importance of mental health and how effective mental health treatment programs are a wise investment that, in the long run, can actually save the state money.
How? Well, one of the fastest growing expenses in state government is for jails and prisons. More and more, legislators are beginning to understand that offering treatment instead of punishment for drug addicts is more cost effective than building more jails to house them.
Regional mental health centers like Pathways and Comprehend provide some of the most effective drug and alcohol treatment programs, and with drug abuse the number one cause of crime in Kentucky, it makes sense to treat addicts rather than to throw them in jail. That’s why it’s encouraging to hear legislators like newly elected State Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, say she wants to put more money in treatment programs and less money in “bricks and mortar.”
She’s not alone. Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelley, R-Springfield, sponsored one of the most progressive bills in the 2009 General Assembly, one that gives first-time drug offenders the opportunity to choose treatment over punishment, and if they are successful in conquering their addictions, they can have the criminal charges against them dropped.
However, treatment programs require more funding. Mental health centers cannot provide additional drug treatment programs if they don’t have the personnel to adequately staff existing programs. Surely, as residents of a region that has been devastated by an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, readers of this newspaper — and area legislators — can understand that the smartest way to conquer this epidemic is through the effective treatment of those addicted to prescription drugs. Throw the criminals in jail who are getting rich feeding the drug habits of area addicts, but offer the addicts help instead of jail.
Steve Shannon, executive director of the association that oversees the regional mental health programs, makes a convincing case for more funding. After all, in the last five years, the number of services provided by mental health programs has climbed by 28 percent while funding has been increased by only 9 percent. Just as important, Medicaid funding has been frozen since 2001. That’s shameful. How many of us could maintain our current lifestyles on what we earned nine years ago?
Shannon predicted the consequences without additional funding for mental health programs: More mentally ill people will be in jails or in homeless shelters instead of getting help from mental health professionals; mentally handicapped youths who have completed school will have more trouble getting the help from mental health centers programs they need to function as adults; and there will be longer times between appointments for mental health patients in need of help. In short, without more funding, the problems caused by the neglect of the mentally ill and of drug addicts will only get worse and the costs of those problems on society will continue to rise.
State Sen. Walter “Doc” Blevins, D-Sandy Hook, realizes that. He said he has been a leading advocate for mental health programs throughout his 27 years in the General Assembly. However, with state government needing another $1 billion just to maintain existing programs, the likelihood of getting the type of new funding like the mental health programs are requesting is somewhere between slim and none.
We agree with Blevins that Kentucky needs to completely revamp and modernize its tax system, but legislators have been discussing that for at least 20 years with little or nothing being done. As long as Kentucky’s voters consider “tax reform” just another name for tax increases, that’s not going to change.
Mental health centers like Pathways should continue making their case for more state funding. That way when funds do become available, they won’t be forgotten. After all, there is a lot of truth in the old adage about the squeaky wheel getting the grease.
Editorials
Keep squaking — 10/04/09
Mental health programs not likely to get requested funds
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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