MENTAL HEALTH MONEY URGED

Ste. Marie, DARE Are Also Topics At County Budget Hearing

Some speakers cried. Others told stories of depression and suicide,
rehabilitation and recovery. A few shared details of their own mental
illness, making the nearly 200 people in Onondaga County Legislature
chambers Tuesday night pay close, if not painful, attention.

But it was Mark Blum, father of a fourth-grader at Mott Road Elementary
School in Manlius, who first put a simple math question to county
legislators at the public hearing on the county's 2003 budget.

Why not, he asked, take money from the county sheriff's department meant
for a controversial anti-drug program and put it toward county-run
outpatient services for children with mental illness?

"What are your priorities?" Blum asked the legislators. "Maybe helping one
child? Or helping 400?"

The question drew loud applause from the crowd, but at least some
legislators already have given their answer. Under the latest proposal for
the 2003 budget, the legislature would restore 31 staff positions within
the Department of Mental Health, keeping the outpatient services in place.

But DARE - the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program typically taught to
fifth- and sixth-graders - would be gone.

So would money for Ste. Marie Among the Iroquois Living History Museum, the
other topic that attracted attention from nearly 50 speakers at the
three-hour hearing, attended by 18 of the county's 19 legislators.

The full legislature is to vote on the final budget at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

Three weeks ago, County Executive Nicholas Pirro proposed an $838 million
budget, which included property tax increases of 6 percent to 31 percent
for residents of Syracuse and the county's 19 towns. It also included money
to pay five DARE deputies. But it eliminated some mental health services to
save $200,000 in local taxpayer money.

County mental health workers responded, and last week a committee of
legislators restored the jobs. The legislators also cut $3.4 million in
total spending, including money for DARE ($428,600) and Ste. Marie
($335,853). The budget proposal now stands at $834.6 million.

But these changes in the mental health budget didn't stop department
workers, their clients and other mental health advocates from repeatedly
explaining Tuesday night how important they feel the county's services are.

Jessica Graves, a mother of three, was one of more than a dozen who spoke
in support of the county's mental health services. She said her experience
with the county got her enrolled at Onondaga Community College and into an
affordable apartment. She has lived at the Syracuse apartment for more than
a year, she said, the longest she's ever lived in one place in her adult life.

"I felt powerless," she said, recalling when she heard that her
caseworker's position might be eliminated. "Losing contact with Kathy
(Elmer, her caseworker) would make me feel like I'd lost contact with all
my progress."

The legislators' proposals also prompted more than a half-dozen people to
speak in favor of keeping Ste. Marie open. John Sullivan of Clay remembered
touring the museum when he was in elementary school. Now he volunteers at
the museum, and he said closing its doors would close opportunities for
children to learn about the Iroquois Confederacy's meeting with French
settlers during the 17th century.

"It is not something you can brush aside," he said. "It is not something
you can forget."

Six students from Solvay, Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse high schools
made pleas of their own. They defended DARE, saying they believe it works,
despite national studies that say the program is ineffective. They also
said it is one of the few chances young children have to interact with -
and seek help from - police officers.

"If we take the police out of school, the abused kids, what are they going
to do?" said Michael Germond, 17, a senior at C-NS.

Sheriff Kevin Walsh, a Republican who is running unopposed for re-election
this fall, stood in the back of the legislative chambers throughout the
hearing. He's taking an unofficial poll about DARE on his campaign Web
site. As of Tuesday night, 14,509 people had voted in Walsh's Internet
poll; 46.2 percent wanted to keep DARE while 53.8 percent wanted to end the
program.