TOPEKA — A pair of Kansas House members is putting together a new, bi-partisan caucus focusing on mental health issues and programs.
Rep. Louis Ruiz, D-Kansas City
Reps. Pat Colloton, a Leawood Republican, and Louis Ruiz, a Kansas City Democrat, are the organizers of the new House subgroup, which has scheduled its inaugural meeting for noon Wednesday in Room 159-S of the Statehouse. The meeting is open to the public.
Gov. Sam Brownback for the coming fiscal year has proposed reducing spending on mental health services provided indirectly through the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Current spending of about $62.8 million would drop to $47.4 million, including additional cuts to the state's community mental health centers, which are where most mentally ill Kansans receive services.
State aid and grants to the centers have been reduced in each of the past five years from a total of about $50 million in fiscal 2006 to about $28.4 million in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. That has happened as the number of people going to the centers has grown by about 5 percent. More than 42,000 people were served by the centers in fiscal 2010, according to the Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas.
"What we want to do is make sure we don't go further in cuts," Colloton said, describing a leading goal of the new caucus.
The governor's budget plan would reduce state aid and grants to the community mental health centers to about $13.3 million a year. And new "pay-go" rules in the Kansas House would require that any additions to spending bills be offset by cuts in other programs.
Rep. Pat Colloton, R-Leawood
Colloton said those new developments make it critical for legislators supportive of mental health programs to be "well organized."
Colloton chairs the Legislature's Joint Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice Oversight.
"Preventive mental health is extremely important to public safety," she said.
The governor's budget plan would slightly increase annual spending on the state's three hospitals for the mentally ill to about $96.5 million
And according to an analysis presented Tuesday to a subcommittee of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, total state spending on mental health services across the gamut of programs and institutions in the coming fiscal year would be about $393 million under the Brownback plan, a decrease of about $3.8 million.
The analysis was presented by Mike Hammond, executive director of the Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas.
Most of the state's mental health spending is paid for with federal Medicaid dollars.