Mental health chief warns that cuts could impact Oklahoma communities, lead to more spending

Mental health cuts could affect Okla. communities

OKLAHOMA CITY — Further cuts to Oklahoma’s mental health budget would be a false economy because the responsibility — and cost — of caring for those who need treatment would simply pass to other state and local agencies, the mental health commissioner warned Wednesday.

Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Terri White said her agency has already cut $16 million from its budget and that additional cuts will force it to reduce programs and turn away some of the 55,000 people who receive treatment and recovery services every year.

“We are going to see a lot more suffering in Oklahoma. And it’s needless suffering,” said White, who also serves as Gov. Brad Henry’s secretary of health.

Oklahoma communities will also feel a financial impact from the budget cuts as people with untreated mental health and addiction disorders come in contact with local law enforcement and health care workers, White said.

“These people are going to be showing up in emergency rooms in crisis,” White said. Local police officers will be required to respond to incidents involving people with untreated mental illnesses and other consequences of the cuts, maybe even suicide, she said.

“That will be costing more than if we had just treated these people in the first place,” White said. “It would foolish not to protect this agency as an essential service because it will cost taxpayers more in the end.”

State tax revenue plummeted in 2009 due to the flowing economy and falling oil and natural gas prices, creating a projected revenue shortfall of more than $729 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and a revenue estimate for next year that is $1.3 billion less than the current one.

Gov. Brad Henry and lawmakers have said they want to protect funding for core state serves such as education, transportation, public safety and health care. Henry has said he believes mental health and substance abuse services qualify as an essential state service.

“It will be a difficult task in light of the projected budget shortfall, but Governor Henry’s goal is to protect the core programs that provide essential services to Oklahomans, and certainly health care and mental health programs fall into that category,” the governor’s communications secretary, Paul Sund, said in a statement.

“In many instances significant cuts to such services could actually end up costing the state far more in the long run because of the unintended budget consequences that would be triggered by deep reductions,” Sund said.

House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa, indicated that lawmakers are still grappling with the issue.

“Many tough decisions will have to be made concerning agency budgets and the true vital functions of government,” Benge said in a statement.

White said $200 million of her agency’s $300 million budget is appropriated by the state.

“We’ve done all the belt-tightening that we can to try to preserve services. The cuts are getting so deep now that Oklahomans are losing services,” White said.

She said treating drug and alcohol offenders is more cost effective than jailing them. It costs $5,000 a year to enroll an offender in drug court but at least $19,000 to incarcerate them, she said.

In addition, drug court graduates are re-arrested less than 25 percent of the time within five years after they are discharged, White said. Those who went to prison are re-arrested over 50 percent of the time.

“Treating mental illness and addiction protects public safety,” White said.