NAMI North Carolina

309 W. Millbrook Rd. Suite 121, Raleigh, NC 27609*919/788-0801

Heard in the Halls

5-1-03

A $15.1 billion budget was passed by the Senate on Wednesday. The budget restores a number of cuts in the DHHS budget by raising an additional $134 million more than the House budget.

The Senate budget cuts area MH/DD/SAS programs by $1.1 million but adds an additional $5 million to the MH/DD/SA Trust Fund for a total of $15 million. Other reductions from the House budget remained, including the $894,000 reduction in contracts and a $3.1 million reduction in the yearly inflation increase to the Division of MH/DD/SAS.

Because the House and Senate passed different versions of the budget it now goes to a conference committee to resolve differences. House and Senate budget conferees may be named as early as today and conference committee meetings will likely begin by early next week. The April revenue figures will soon be released. It is expected that these figures will fall short of projections by as much as $300 million, resulting in the need to make more cuts or raise more revenue to balance the budget. So, our work to protect funding for the MH/DD/SA system is not yet done.

Many, many thanks to all of you who contacted legislators—our advocacy is working. We will send more information once the conference committee is named and begins its work.

H 654, Rep. Martha Alexander’s bill to require mental health and chemical dependency insurance parity, was debated in the House Insurance Committee twice but the outcome was the same as the previous 10 years—no vote. This debate is an old one and nothing new was added to the discussion. At the end of the meetings, however, representatives of the various positions were urged by the committee chair to work on a compromise. This work is occurring and it is possible that a new parity bill will be debated in the committee in a couple of weeks. While we are once again in a struggle to move parity forward, it is not over until the final gavel and we will keep working until the legislators go home. We will provide updates as they are available.

H 170 is Rep. Verla Insko’s bill to allow individuals who qualify for state/county special assistance funds the opportunity to use a portion of those funds to maintain a home instead of requiring that the individual move into a licensed facility such as an adult care home. This bill was amended in the House Health committee. The bill was then picked up by the Senate and rolled into the budget bill as a special provision. This means that as long as the budget is in force (2 years) the provision is law. At the end of the budget the provision can be renewed or a law can be passed to put it into the General Statutes.

The provision in the Senate budget:

• Turns the current "demonstration project" into an ongoing option
• Doubles the number of available slots to 800
• Allows all counties the opportunity to participate

Our job now is to make sure the provision stays in the budget during the discussions of the House and Senate budget conference committee.

Now that the Senate budget has passed, Sen. Steve Metcalf is set to push his bill (S 665) to raise taxes on alcohol to fund the MH/DD/SA Trust Fund. A press conference during the Coalition Legislative Rally Day May 6^th will support this bill. More information will follow as this effort begins to move forward.

Coalition Legislative Day Tuesday May 6^th –make plans to be there. See the flyer on the next page for more information.