STOP CUTS TO BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CARE

A disaster in behavioral health care is approaching the state of Missouri.
The epicenter is Gov. Matt Blunt's recommended budget for the fiscal year
that starts on July 1.

Recent newspaper articles across the state have highlighted the governor's
recommended budget cuts in regard to services to children and infants,
Medicaid recipients, and individuals with developmental disabilities. But
the media, to date, have not reviewed in depth the effect of the
recommended cuts on behavioral health care, most notably, substance abuse
treatment services to the uninsured indigent population.

In the fiscal year that ends June 30 the state had budgeted about $12
million for treatment services for this population. The Missouri
contribution for treatment services was matched, dollar for dollar, by the
federal government. The federal contribution to behavioral health care is
based on the preceding year's allotment by the state.

For the new fiscal year the governor's recommended budget would slash the
state's dollar amount by $10.2 million, which would be followed by a
similar cut in federal funds come July 1, 2006.

In all, this amounts to a $20.4 million cut in 12 months excluding any
additional federal grant money to which the state could have had access.

The more than 36,000 Missourians who receive substance abuse treatment
services will not disappear just because the money has. We will see them in
our emergency rooms, our police stations, our courtrooms, our jails and
penitentiaries, and our mental hospitals. We will read about them in our
newspapers in stories related to domestic violence, child abuse, murder and
suicide, sexually transmitted diseases, increased crime in the community,
more homelessness, and one more neighborhood devastated by drugs and alcohol.

Just in Kansas City alone, the negative effect of these cuts will be
visible in the increases in panhandlers, prostitution, graffiti,
homelessness, impaired individuals, muggings and other petty crimes. This
would occur at the same time Kansas City is fashioning a "new" downtown
with the performing arts center, the Sprint Center and the Kansas City Live
entertainment district.

As a former long-term director of corrections for Jackson County, I can
assure Missourians that the link between substance abuse and anti-social
behavior is very strong.

What can be done before the wave hits?

Contact the governor's office as well as your state senator and legislator
and let them know what you think. If you are a past consumer of treatment
service, contact your elected representatives and tell them what treatment
did for you. If you are a victim of the human misery that accompanies
substance abuse and dependence, you, more than anybody else, know the cost
of not having treatment services available.

Let our elected officials know where you stand on the budget recommendation
that is guaranteed to destroy lives, hurt communities, and drive up the
cost of commerce. It is not too late, but the clock is running very fast.

Charles Megerman is executive director of the substance abuse program at
the Kansas City Community Center. He lives in Overland Park.