Drastic cuts may cost jobs, mental health care

Spokane County commissioners and local mental health care providers are bracing for drastic cuts.

State and federal cuts have left Spokane County $7.5 million short, about 25 percent of the local regional support network’s annual budget, said Spokane County Commissioner Mark Richard.

Such a shortfall will severely affect local programs, eliminating 150-300 jobs and leaving thousands of mental health patients without adequate treatment, said Richard, who is leading the fight to get the funding restored.

But Washington Department of Social and Health Services officials see the situation differently.

“We just can’t come to terms with that. We can’t see where they’re getting an actual cut,” said Dave Daniels, operations chief for DSHS’s mental health division.

DSHS officials said Spokane County is getting more from the state than it did last year.

“They actually came out about $400,000 ahead,” said Daniels.

Even so, DSHS staff will meet with regional support networks to discuss the situation.

“Gov. Gregoire wants to sort this out and resolve these issues,” said Ed Penhale, spokesman for the governor’s office.

So does DSHS, said MaryAnne Lindeblad, interim director for the mental health division.

“We’re in the middle of that process right now,” Lindeblad said, adding, “We’re trying to understand what’s going on.”

DSHS has scheduled an Aug. 11 meeting with regional support networks to discuss the issue.

But in the meantime, Spokane County mental health care providers said they’re facing a dire situation.

State funding pays for counseling for 525 people at Lutheran Community Services, said Heike Lake, program director for outpatient counseling. About 75 percent of those clients are children.

“About 95 percent of our consumers are coming here because they have experienced some form of traumatic event or events, like sexual assault and domestic violence,” Lake said.

And many of those children are acting out themselves, which means cuts to their care could lead to more victims.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is a crisis to our system,” Lake said.

What both the county and DSHS agree on is that DSHS changed the funding formula outlined in state legislation designed to help local governments address federal funding cuts. As a result, Spokane ended up getting less than it would have had under the original plan passed by the state Legislature.

“It appears to be some shenanigans from legislators outside this region or DSHS,” said Richard, who added that move alone cut $3.7 million.

The legislation authorizing $80 million in state mental health funds called for the money to be allocated based on historic services for part of the funding and on population for the remainder.

But Daniels said that using population alone for the second portion of funds was impractical because it would have left several areas without adequate funding to maintain their mental health systems, including northeast and north central Washington counties, Gray’s Harbor, Thurston and Mason.

So DSHS made some adjustments.

That came as a surprise to several local legislators at a recent West Plains Chamber of Commerce meeting, who were shocked when they were told that Spokane County wasn’t getting what they had intended, said Spokane County Commissioner Phil Harris.

Spokane County commissioners sent letters to Gov. Christine Gregoire and local state legislators about the issue this week.

“The immediate goal of what the Legislature did is to provide funding to stabilize these regional networks statewide,” said Penhale, the governor’s spokesman. That was achieved, Penhale said.

But Richard said even the initial allocation would have left Spokane County a little short.

“It didn’t account for inflation or increased costs, but we thought we could work with it,” he said.

If the funding isn’t restored, the county will have to look at slashing service, dipping into its reserves, cutting other departments or a combination of the three, Richard said.

“You have these people who can’t care for themselves, who aren’t functioning,” Richard said. “To me it’s a core function of government to take care of these people.”