By Denyce Duncan Lacy

Mental-health workers and their patients got some good news from an unexpected corner in November. Gov. George Pataki announced a new initiative that boosts funding for state-run mental-health programs and puts a moratorium on the state's policy of reinstitutionalizing the mentally ill.

The governor's initiative features:
· a one-year moratorium on state psychiatric-center bed reductions,
· $52 million for case managers and Assertive Community Treatment teams,
· $13 million for 2,580 additional case-management services for children,
· $10 million in funding to enhance the state Office of Mental Health's oversight of community-based programs,
· $8 million to expand state-operated transitional residences to all five state psychiatric centers in New York City, presumably on the grounds of the hospitals, and
· $1.6 million for mobile mental-health teams in facilities operated by the state Office of Children and Family Services.
They heard us

"Our voices have finally been heard by the governor and the state Office of Mental Health," PEF President Roger Benson wrote, in a letter to OMH stewards and delegates.
"For decades, PEF members have fought for an end to the prolonged practice of locking the doors of our mental hospitals while simultaneously pushing ill-equipped patients out the back doors, often to fend for themselves with little support or supervision.
"I believe we are are turning a corner on the provision of quality care for all mentally ill in New York."

Benson said the moratorium should mean an end to the annual staff reductions in state psychiatric centers. And the increased funding for oversight of community-based programs should lead to major increases in Quality Assurance staffing.

Time to restore staff

While pleased with the increases, the union president also called on Gov. Pataki to take even bolder steps to improve the state's mental-health programs.

Immediately after the initiative was announced, Benson wrote to the governor and urged him to reconsider the issue of shared staff - the 215 PEF mental-health workers whose positions were eliminated in this year's state budget.

The Legislature restored 66 of the jobs, but PEF has been lobbying for full restoration.
Benson called on the governor to make it happen, now.

"Existing strains on the mental-health system, as well as the new demands imposed by passage of Kendra's Law, suggest that the best solution is to maintain all shared staff in their current positions as state employees serving their communities," Benson wrote.
"The value of the experience and qualification of these employees in the positions they currently hold should be recognized by administrative restoration of their positions."

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