Mental
Health Association in New York State, Inc. |
Friday Fax from Albany
Legislature Holds Joint Budget Hearings on Mental Hygiene: On Wednesday, MHANYS joined other mental health advocates, as well as the Commissioners of the Office of Mental Health (OMH), the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD), and the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) in testifying before the Legislature’s Joint Budget Hearings. After the Commissioners each took their turn in providing members of both the Senate and Assembly with an overview of the Governor’s budget as it pertains to each of their purviews, legislators who were present questioned the Commssioners about specifics in the Governor’s budget. OMH Commissioner Sharon Carpinello fielded questions on a variety of topics, including:
Commissioner Carpinello was very responsive to the concerns voiced by the legislators. Given the budget crisis in New York and the expectation of huge mental health buts, the proposed budget was better than expected. We still, however, voiced many concerns which are reflected throughout our testimony. Assembly Insurance Committee Chair Alexander (Pete) Grannis pointed out that the Governor’s proposal to eliminate coverage for mental health benefits under Family Health Plus is “more than a bucket of cold water” on the efforts of those advocating for the passage of Timothy’s Law. We agree with Assemblyman Grannis and will be making that point at the Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Health, Medicaid and Aging next week. Several mental health organizations, including MHANYS, testified about the budget. In our testimony, I characterized this budget as a ‘mixed bag budget.’ We were pleased to see the enhanced rate for supported housing providers downstate. Though there is no new funding for housing in the budget, we were also pleased to see that 600 supported housing beds will be available in the community this year as well as the few thousand beds still in the pipeline. Yet we made it clear that there is still a housing crisis in New York for people with mental illness and we need thousands of new beds for the state’s priority populations. Much of our testimony was spent voicing our strong opposition to the proposed cuts in the Aid to Localities budget. We used the examples we received from our MHAs throughout the state about the impact of last year’s $7.7 million cut. A proposed second cut of $3.9 million this year, on top of the $7.7 million cut last year, will devastate many of the MHAs, as well as other community providers. I argued that if OMH plans on cutting community providers that are doing a perceived bad job through high administration costs and inefficiencies (the so called ‘bad actors’), then they should balance the cuts by incentivizing the overwhelming number of good community providers by keeping the funding in the community. Frankly, it makes no sense that we have to fight to keep $3.9 million (in a proposed $105 billion state budget) in the community for programs that provide quality, cost efficient services that allow individuals with psychiatric disabilities to live in the community rather than diverting them to costly hospitals, in the prison system, or leaving them homeless. We also voiced our concerns about the impact of the cuts to Medicaid including the Preferred Drug List (PDL), cuts to psychological services in inpatient settings, and the cuts to mental health coverage for Family Health Plus. We will provide greater detail when we provide testimony to the Joint Budget Hearings on Health. One of the highlights of the testimony came from David Gonzales of the Mental Health Empowerment Project. David spoke powerfully about his personal experience and the direct impact that cuts to community providers would have to his recovery. Another highlight was the presence of several residents of adult homes who attended the hearing. Several adult home residents from downstate came up and held signs indicating where they lived and how much they wanted to live in more independent housing in the community. Irene Kaplan and Alfred McRae of gave their moving personal perspectives on living in an adult home. In my prior job, I was the Director of Adult Home Initiatives at the Department of Health, and I worked very closely with many of these individuals. It was wonderful to watch their empowering presentations, and how far they have come in their individual recovery. I would like to acknowledge these courageous adult home residents as well as Geoff Lieberman and Tony Kessler from the Coalition for the Institutionalized and Aged Disabled and Karen Schimke and Davon Robinson of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy for their work in helping to get out this message. I also had the opportunity to speak with David Hepp of the television show Inside Albany about the local assistance cuts as well as the need for more housing in New York. Next week, we will be sending out a letter asking the Governor to restore the $3.9 million cut in the thirty day amendments. The MHANYS testimony is available at http://www.mhanys.org/pubpol/pp_05budgettestomh.htm. Please feel free to contact me, Glenn Liebman, with any questions or concerns.
Until
next time, we remain, |