I just wanted to thank all of you who attended our legislative conference. We had around 150 people in attendance and representation from many of our MHA affiliates and many of our colleagues in the mental health community. As I said today at the meeting, our timing for our legislative day was very good given the budget negotiations going on in the Assembly and Senate. It was empowering to see so many folks in the halls of the Legislative Office Building, carrying the advocacy message of MHANYS.

The Assembly and Senate Mental Hygiene Committees held their first conference meeting tonight. They both identified their priorities. Several of the items that MHANYS listed as priorities are on either the Senate or Assembly list including funding for mental health community services ($2 million--Senate), geriatric mental health ($2 million--Senate), suicide prevention ($1 million for young Latino Women and Elderly Asian Women--Assembly) and Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities ($600,000 in Assembly, $400,000 in Senate). Unfortunately, they are funded for less than we requested which is no surprise given that the overall numbers for the mental hygiene table in the legislature is relatively small especially in a good budget year like this one has been.

Please note that the call for putting anti-depressants back into the mental health carve out for the Preferred Drug List is at the Health Table and has been recommended for restoration by the Assembly.

We have not gotten a positive response on our call to make the COLA permanent but we will still continue our advocacy.

The joint committees are not expected to meet again till Monday. We will be arranging a call in next week to continue to fight for our priorities.

Please contact us with any questions.

Glenn Liebman