|
|
|
Mental Health Services of Southern Oklahoma is another victim of the state’s budget shortfall.
“We are doing as much or more with less,” Executive Director Robert Lee said.
Oklahoma budget officials have ordered state agencies to cut their budgets by 5 percent each of the first three months of the 2009-10 fiscal year because of plunging revenue collections. State agencies are doing their best to absorb the cuts without reducing services, but the budget cutbacks are already affecting local agencies that provide direct services to clients.
For example, cuts by the Commission on Human Services means fewer funds are flowing down to the Southern Oklahoma Nutrition Program, which will have to close some of its senior nutrition sites. And reductions from the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services translate into fewer people with mental illness or substance abuse problems being served at the local level.
“It means we have fewer licensed staff to provide (counseling) services and fewer case management staff to provide community services,” Lee said. “Two years ago, we would see everybody who walked in the door. Now we treat only the most seriously ill and do what we can to cover the rest.”
MHSSO provides a wide array of services in nine southern Oklahoma counties. Those services include counseling, psychiatric care, case management, crisis intervention, drug court, residential substance abuse treatment for adults and services to children and their families. Standstill state agency budgets and the latest rounds of cutbacks have already taken a toll.
MHSSO has less money to spend than it did a year ago as well as 12 fewer employees. But the demand for services is steady or rising (260 people applied for help during September in just five of the counties in MHSSO’s service area).
“Everyone who came in is experiencing emotional or psychiatric distress,” Lee said. “If they are not sick enough, we can’t respond the way we’d like to.”
Still, the agency has made significant progress in some other areas during the past year or so.
MHSSO utilizes telemedicine technology which allows clients to interact with a psychiatrist via video. A video link in the Carter County Courthouse enables judges to conduct mental health hearings for patients at Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman.
And a $500,000 grant from the Southern Oklahoma Memorial Foundation has been used to complete a number of needed renovations in the clinic and in the adult residential treatment buildings.
“The problem is that we are finishing that project at the same time we are having budget cuts,” Lee said.
The situation is not likely to get better any time soon. Gov. Brad Henry’s communications director Paul Sund told a reporter for The Oklahoman Thursday that the state’s budget problems may well create additional challenges for already-strapped state agencies.
“It’s pretty hard to be optimistic in this environment,” Lee said.
Steve Biehn, 221-6546
Mental Health Services of Southern Oklahoma is another victim of the state’s budget shortfall.
“We are doing as much or more with less,” Executive Director Robert Lee said.
Oklahoma budget officials have ordered state agencies to cut their budgets by 5 percent each of the first three months of the 2009-10 fiscal year because of plunging revenue collections. State agencies are doing their best to absorb the cuts without reducing services, but the budget cutbacks are already affecting local agencies that provide direct services to clients.
For example, cuts by the Commission on Human Services means fewer funds are flowing down to the Southern Oklahoma Nutrition Program, which will have to close some of its senior nutrition sites. And reductions from the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services translate into fewer people with mental illness or substance abuse problems being served at the local level.
“It means we have fewer licensed staff to provide (counseling) services and fewer case management staff to provide community services,” Lee said. “Two years ago, we would see everybody who walked in the door. Now we treat only the most seriously ill and do what we can to cover the rest.”
MHSSO provides a wide array of services in nine southern Oklahoma counties. Those services include counseling, psychiatric care, case management, crisis intervention, drug court, residential substance abuse treatment for adults and services to children and their families. Standstill state agency budgets and the latest rounds of cutbacks have already taken a toll.
MHSSO has less money to spend than it did a year ago as well as 12 fewer employees. But the demand for services is steady or rising (260 people applied for help during September in just five of the counties in MHSSO’s service area).
“Everyone who came in is experiencing emotional or psychiatric distress,” Lee said. “If they are not sick enough, we can’t respond the way we’d like to.”
Still, the agency has made significant progress in some other areas during the past year or so.
MHSSO utilizes telemedicine technology which allows clients to interact with a psychiatrist via video. A video link in the Carter County Courthouse enables judges to conduct mental health hearings for patients at Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman.
And a $500,000 grant from the Southern Oklahoma Memorial Foundation has been used to complete a number of needed renovations in the clinic and in the adult residential treatment buildings.
“The problem is that we are finishing that project at the same time we are having budget cuts,” Lee said.
The situation is not likely to get better any time soon. Gov. Brad Henry’s communications director Paul Sund told a reporter for The Oklahoman Thursday that the state’s budget problems may well create additional challenges for already-strapped state agencies.
“It’s pretty hard to be optimistic in this environment,” Lee said.
Steve Biehn, 221-6546
