PEF urges lawmakers to reject budget cuts
By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
Saying PEF has “grave concerns” about the governor’s state budget proposal and its impact on New York’s most vulnerable citizens, PEF President Roger Benson called on state lawmakers to stop the planned cutbacks in services to the mentally ill.
“This year’s Executive Budget clearly represents a bargain basement- approach to the care of the mentally ill, where quality of care takes a distant back seat to the goal of cutting spending,” said Roger Benson, in January testimony before the state Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees.
Say
no to closuresFocusing the bulk of his testimony on proposed funding cuts in mental-health-care services, Benson urged lawmakers to reject the governor’s plans
to close the Middletown and Hutchings state psychiatric centers and to consolidate four children’s psychiatric
centers and one forensic center, warning that “quality of care would be compromised.”
Instead, the union leader said, lawmakers should keep the facilities open; keep the children’s centers separate from adult facilities; and, increase direct-care staffing levels for all the state’s psychiatric facilities.
And Benson noted that while the proposed state budget does not call for layoffs, psychiatric center closures and mergers would still hurt some workers.
“The administration indicates that staff reductions will occur without layoffs. While technically this may be true, in reality, public employees will end up being placed in a position of choosing between an assignment at a distant location, disrupting their families’ lives, or terminating their employment. Clearly, some employees will be hurt by these job cuts.”
Benson also told lawmakers the state could improve care to the mentally ill and improve safety for patients and staff by hiring more workers, instead of making staff work overtime to the tune of $42 million per year. For those same dollars, Benson testified, the state could hire 550 additional mental health care workers, filling staff vacancies in facilities throughout the state. The PEF president also urged lawmakers to reject the governor’s proposal to phase out funding for “shared staff” mental health care workers.
Cuts eyed for youth centers
PEF is also opposed to plans to close other state programs and facilities.
The Executive Budget proposes to close all 12 state-operated group homes and two secure units for troubled youth. And it would increase class sizes.
Many youngsters with a record of violent offenses would be shipped off to state prisons at age 16.
“These proposals contradict the governor’s stated commitment to preventing juvenile delinquency and improving rehabilitation,” Benson said.
“Such a policy almost guarantees that these youths will not get the help they need while in state custody. It will increase juvenile delinquency, not prevent it,” he added.
The Executive Budget also proposes a reduction of 126 prison program staff — the PEF members who teach, counsel, and provide substance-abuse treatment and other services to state-prison inmates.
“These workers are already straining to provide the programs that are so vital to prepare inmates for their return to our communities,” Benson said.
“Since 1990, New York’s prison population has increased by 17,000 while the level of program staff has remained unchanged,” Benson says. “Fewer program staff also may place the public at risk, by reducing the ability of the state to prepare inmates properly for productive lives once they are released.”
And Benson said PEF plans to fight Pataki’s proposal to eliminate parole for all convicted felons and his plan for changing controls and operations at the state’s teaching hospitals.