AUGUSTA – Though lawmakers this week restored about $2.8 million that had been targeted for elimination from some mental health programs for children, supporters say the amount is still far too little.

Even with the restored funds, many of these statewide programs provided through the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services will be funded at just a fraction of their earlier levels. For example, the Community Support budget was cut from $1.18 million in fiscal year 2003 to $150,000 in FY04, an 87 percent decrease.

“This is awful for everyone,” said Cynthia Donaldson, director of Special Children’s Friends in Ellsworth, an organization that provides early intervention services to about 150 special needs children and their families. Early intervention has proved successful in averting more serious problems later in a child’s life and in keeping families together, she said.

Unless things improve, Donaldson said, there will be little money available for services like in-home teaching for parents, support groups, special needs day care, transportation, help with the purchase of expensive specialized equipment and keeping families in touch with available services.

“In many ways, these services are the glue that hold families together,” Donaldson said. “Once [the early intervention system] is dismantled, it’s going to be very difficult to put it back together.”

The cuts were proposed in an effort to close the $1.2 billion gap between anticipated state revenues and expenses in the two-year budget cycle that begins July 1.

Almost all state-funded programs are feeling the pinch of tough financial times. But advocates for children’s services say their clients are taking a disproportionate hit.

Rep. Thomas Kane, D-Saco, who sits on the Health and Human Services Committee, said the deep cuts were made in the children’s programs because “nothing else was on the table.” Mandated spending on state and federal programs and court-ordered consent decrees left little in the way of discretionary spending, he said.

Kane acknowledged that meaningful levels of service cannot be maintained with such low funding. The immediate goal, he said, is to “retain the infrastructure” of the system, so that in the future, when times are less lean, programs will already be in place and can be funded more fully. “Restoring cuts to children’s services is our top priority,” he said.

The statewide programs serve thousands of children from birth to age 5 and their families. Children who receive these services may suffer from a variety of disorders, including mental retardation and autism. They may also demonstrate extreme behavioral problems without a specific diagnosis.

No other services within the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services have been hit as hard.

Lawmakers from both parties on the Appropriations Committee were continuing to search for additional funds for the programs Wednesday, according to legislative staff.

Kane said he appreciates the efforts to find more funding, but doesn’t think there’s any place left in the budget to come up with it.

Carol Carothers, director of the Maine chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, said the state has just gotten to the point of offering a breadth of services to children and families, services that can make the difference between keeping special needs kids at home and relinquishing custody to the state.

The funds that are being cut, she said, have enabled families to bring their children home from out-of-state institutional care, moves which, in addition to their human value, offer significant cost savings. Community services that may cost the state $10,000 a year or less may keep a child out of $200,000-a-year institutional care, she said.

A candlelight vigil is planned for tomorrow at noon in the Hall of Flags at the State House to bring attention to the effects of the proposed cuts.