Mental health advocates warned of tough year
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: November 13, 2009
MONTPELIER – Gov. James Douglas warned that the state faces a difficult budget year for 2010 as he addressed a gathering of mental health advocates Thursday afternoon, but offered no clues as to how the state would fund social services in the future.
Douglas, a Republican who is retiring next year, has made it a habit of addressing mental health and substance abuse advocates at the Vermont Association for Mental Health's annual conference in Montpelier.
It's a community that he has a friendly, but mixed, relationship with. Some advocates praise the governor for being a strong supporter of parity in health insurance coverage while others say he has not moved swiftly enough on other issues, including closing down and replacing Waterbury's Vermont State Hospital.
Faced with state revenues that have declined over the last year – the state takes in less taxes now than it did just three years ago – Douglas, who will present his final budget to the Vermont Legislature in January, hinted that some hard choices may be coming for social services.
"The good news is that we are not in freefall anymore," Douglas told the crowd of hundreds of mental health activists, patients and workers at Capitol Plaza early Thursday afternoon. "But the bad news is that, as one economist told me, we are now crawling along the bottom."
Vermont's Department of Mental Health has an annual budget of just more than $21 million and will soon relocate from Burlington back to Waterbury, where it will be closer to the State Hospital. That hospital, which is home to Vermonters with severe cases of mental illness, lost federal funding several years ago and is a major drag on the department's budget.
One of the more recent cuts to the Mental Health Department's budget is the upcoming closing of the State Hospital's canteen – a cafeteria used by staff and patients at the facility. State officials say closing the canteen will save about $150,000 a year, but advocates dispute that number, saying the true savings to be about half that.
VAMH Executive Director Ken Libertoff released the organization's 2010 goals at the conference Thursday, which include working "hard to make sure that all parties understand the intended and unintended consequences of funding decisions because poor or uninformed decisions made now will have enormous impact over the course of the next decade."
Of the decision to close the canteen, Libertoff said, "From the Mental Health Association's perspective, this decision is bad for patients, bad for staff and bad public policy."
The canteen didn't come up Thursday when Michael Hartman, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Mental Health, addressed advocates. Instead, he stressed some successes and challenges in closing the State Hospital, including next month's opening of a new treatment facility in Brattleboro.
Hartman said Meadowview Recovery will open in December and have six inpatient bids that will help reduce the strain on the State Hospital. The Waterbury facility's daily census hovered in the low 40s earlier this year, but has since hit its 54-person capacity in recent months.
"We did have some people show up in emergency rooms because there wasn't space," Hartman said.
VAMH's annual conference is a draw for Vermont politicians, especially those seeking higher office in an election cycle. Secretary of State Deb Markowitz and Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, both of whom are running to replace Douglas, addressed the audience.
Sen. Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, who is expected to soon announce a run for governor, also spoke in the morning. Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, a Republican who is running to replace Douglas, spoke in the early afternoon. U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., who is not up for reelection until 2012, also gave an update on health care reform efforts in Washington, D.C.
daniel.barlow@timesargus.com
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