Family Services

Amid all the good reasons for merging the state Departments of Human Services and Behavioral and Developmental Services, one of the best is rarely mentioned. A merger would require spring cleaning of the sort that should be done annually but almost never is: The departments would be forced to review what they were doing, how they were doing it, whether it still needed to be done and, if so, how it might be done more effectively in the larger department.

Policy-makers may respond that this sort of review could take place outside a merger and, technically, that is correct. It could, but it doesn’t. Not until a major upheaval of current practices imminently faces employees will they be given the time and the incentive to accomplish this overdue exercise. The review is needed, say observers convincingly, because these two crucial departments currently duplicate efforts, sometimes contradict each other, do not work together often enough and have not adequately examined how to most effectively deliver services.

This last criticism was reflected in legislative testimony last week, when Richard Israel, finance director of Community Health and Counseling Service, castigated BDS for its budgeting priorities. Arguing that BDS promised proportional cuts between the agency and the nonprofits, Mr. Israel said the cuts in community-based services are more than $36 million, while the state budget itself would increase by almost $6.5 million. Some of that money is being spent under court order, so there is little choice for the state, but it also reflects a shift in the delivery of services. “What we did not understand was that increases in state employee salaries and fringes and other increases in state-run services would be mostly preserved during the biennium at the cost of massive cuts to already ailing community based services,” according to Mr. Israel.

The idea of merging the two departments has been around for years, and several commissions created to study the issue have said services would be improved if they were. The Maine Children’s Alliance, a supporter of a merger, says bringing the departments together would clarify the common purpose of family treatment and support, improve federal financing and avoid duplication of effort. It could provide better service for less money, but like a lot of good ideas, the merger would improve services only if done carefully and slowly, with plenty of review and double-checking before changes are made.

That sounds obvious, but if the merger is done merely to, for instance, save money, it will likely fail and Maine families would be worse off. But the state would benefit from a new department that is a single place for families seeking services, reduces the need for families to fill out separate forms and assessments for separate departments, is a system able to draw more federal dollars and can more easily show what Maine actually spends on the services.

This will require a spring cleaning of unusual proportion, but it will also refocus Maine on serving families most effectively and make clear to everyone how the state intends to deliver these essential programs.