Washington state budget

Sadly, it's often a high-profile crime committed by someone with untreated or inadequately treated mental illness that puts the issue of spending for mental health care back in front of the public. But as headlines fade, so does public willingness to face the consequences of cutbacks on mental health spending. InvestigateWest, together with 10 other reporting centers around the country, drilled down to see what state budget cuts were doing to the mental health safety net.

What we found was disturbing: Beds closing at hospitals, short-term treatment centers, and group homes. Caseloads rising for already over-taxed mental healthcare workers. The population of people with mental illness in jails, emergency rooms and on the street escalating.

The way these stories make the news also frustrates those who have worked hard to erase the stigma of mental illness in society. A huge number of people live with mental illness, and almost none of them commit crimes. The vast majority are not violent. Many, however, do need help and support to stay in school, get jobs, and maintain healthy relationships.

In short, the cuts are quickly dismantling many of the gains that mental health advocates have fought for decades to establish -- access to treatment, support and housing that helps people with mental illness stay well and able to function in their families and communities. As many of those we interviewed in our story pointed out, the short-term cost savings of the budget cuts likely will wind up costing taxpayers more over the long run.  You can see the national picture in this story from Amy Biegelsen at the Center for Public Integrity.

State budgets are war zones. And the evidence is all over the place. In Oregon, the recently retired president of the University of Oregon is calling for the conversion of the state’s largest universities into public corporations. That in order to save them, Dave Frohnmayer explains.

In Washington, Gov. Christine Gregoire, facing down a budget gap estimated today at more than $2 billion, says this is going to be hard to fix. To make her point, she illustrates it like this:

Ending all state aid to the University of Washington and Washington State University would free up $493 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2010. Shuttering the state's 34 community and technical colleges, that would produce another $643 million in savings.

Now, she’s not really saying she’s going to do that. She also says shutting down Washington's penal system would save about $800 million a year, in a story reported by Jerry Cornfield in the Everett Herald. And she’s not likely to do that wholesale either.

There are a couple of faintly hopeful signposts on the western economy today. The biggie - the California budget doesn't look so bad.  Despite regular tidings of gloom and doom, comes now a glimmer of good cheer. Buoyed perhaps by a resurgent stock market and other signs the recession is on its way out, reports the San Jose Mercury News, the state's revenue and spending projections "ought to hold up to at least mid-January, and maybe even beyond," according to analysts and economists. Woo-hoo.

 However, "the glad tidings may be temporary," writes Merc reporter Denis C. Theriault, who notes the deficit for next year is already estimated at $7.4 billion.

Still, it's the first time this year when when deficit slashing wasn't the chief occupation in the state capital. And it's good news for state parks in California. Remember those 100 parks that were going to be shut down because the state simply didn't have the money to operate them? Well, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now says he won't have to shut them down, but he is going to stop buying equipment to maintain them and lay off many of the employees who staff them. His decision also came after activists launched campaigns to keep the parks open, and a Sacramento environmental group posted a memo from state park attorneys warning that taxpayers could be on the hook for breaching park concession contracts if parks were closed.

There is more upside to the bad news of state budgets. In Colorado, where the state is facing a $318 million shortfall, some social justice advocates see the the draconian cuts the state is forced to make as a way to face up to some real problems in the state prison system. That has already happened in California.