WEATHERFORD —
The executive director of Pecan Valley MHMR, a behavioral health care services organization serving Parker County, told commissioners Monday that state legislators are poised to make deep cuts in community-based mental health services for the next two years.
The proposed cuts could reduce Pecan Valley’s funding by as much as 20 percent, resulting in the discharge of 500 adult mental health patients and reducing staff by 25 employees, Coke Beatty told the court.
Legislators may also reduce Medicaid reimbursement rates, he said, further limiting funds and discouraging doctors from being Medicaid providers.
“We stand to lose over $2.5 million,” he said. “This is not a palatable solution to state budget cuts.”
Beatty, whose organization offers an array of mental health and mental retardation services to adults and children in Parker, Somervell, Erath, Johnson, Palo Pinto and Hood counties, said the “cost savings” for the state is really a cost shifting to local governments, who must pick up a higher tab when unsupervised mental health patients end up in jails or hospital emergency rooms.
Community-based health care services have an average cost of about $12 per day, he said, compared to jail stays, which costs about $130 per day or hospital stays, which cost about $400 per day.
“An average emergency room episode is about $900,” he said. “This is shifting the costs back down to this court, back to the sheriff’s office.”
Parker County commissioners allocated $25,000 for Pecan Valley MHMR services this year, County Spokesman Joel Kertok said.
Judge Mark Riley agreed the proposed cuts amounted to an “unfunded mandate” for the county, which could also prove to be a liability issue.
“For someone that we’ve identified who needs statutory process involving MHMR services, we have to maintain a separate cell, and they have to be watched more often than anybody else,” he said.
Beatty presented the court with a letter to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and members of the Texas Senate asking them to support recommendations made by the Senate Finance Committee to restore the funding.
“We urge the Texas Senate to commit itself to the recommendations made by the Senate Finance Committee to fully maintain current service levels in community mental health, including crisis services, community hospitals and outpatient services for adults and children in the next biennium by adding $237.7 million to the appropriations bill,” the letter states.
The letter is signed by Danette Castle, CEO of the Texas Council of Community Centers; Gene Terry, executive director of the Texas Association of Counties; James Allison, general counsel for the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas; Donald Lee, executive director of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties; Sheriff Gary Painter, president of the Sheriffs Association of Texas; and Chief James McLaughlin Jr., executive director of the Texas Police Chiefs Association.
With a $14 million annual budget, Pecan Valley’s outpatient community clinics in Weatherford, Cleburne, Stephenville, Granbury and Mineral Wells see more than 1,800 patients monthly, including 230 children, with long-term illnesses such as paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, according to Beatty.
Services include outpatient care, doctor’s appointments, case management, housing support services, job coaching and “continuing to be connected to a person with mental illness,” he said.
The Mineral Wells Index and The Cleburne Times Review contributed to this story.
Local News
May 11, 2011
County hears about cuts for mental health services
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