Legislators vote to preserve program, dodge mental health budget

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers voted to preserve a program that would help keep mentally handicapped people with their families, but they held off on controversial items of a $617 million mental health budget during a weekend meeting.

Members of an Assembly panel Saturday finalized some parts of the Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services budget, but steered clear of proposals to reduce capacity at hospitals for mentally ill criminals, make counties pay for serving mentally disabled children and restructure treatments for children with autism.

Up for consideration was the Family Preservation Program, which pays low-income families a monthly stipend of $374 so they can keep a mentally disabled family member at home instead of paying for more expensive institutional care.

The program serves 528 families, but counts on revenue from a class action legal settlement with large tobacco companies. An arbitrator hasn't ruled on the settlement, and about $1.2 million of the program's $5.4 million budget for the upcoming biennium hangs in the balance.

If the tobacco companies pay up, the Family Preservation Program wants to do away with a wait list and add another 72 families to the program. The Assembly Ways and Means panel voted not to add families unless the settlement money arrives .

Legislators will have to reconcile that discrepancy.

The program is one of the minor decisions the committee faces in the mental health budget. Elephants in the room include a proposal to shift the $6 million financial responsibility for mental health courts to cash-strapped counties, laying off psychologists and social workers who serve about 1,500 Nevadans each year, and cutting dozens of beds at two psychiatric wards.

Last week, Gov. Brian Sandoval said he wants to add $46 million back to health and human services programs. Add-backs to the mental health division include $1.7 million for substance abuse and treatment programs and $1.25 million to keep open triage centers for mentally ill people detoxifying from alcoholism or drug addiction.

Not including add-backs, Mental Health and Developmental Services has a proposed budget of $617 million in the upcoming biennium, a 12.5 percent cut from the budget approved by the 2009 Legislature.