BUDGET TIME

Time, says the Baldacci’s administration budget chief, creates opportunities for new savings and sources of revenue that are not apparent now, but time, like money, is in short supply in Augusta as lawmakers try to close a $48 million gap in the next budget. Everything the administration has done in its short tenure points toward its commitment to straightening out years of budgetary sloppiness, creating a more effective state government and lowering the tax burden. Time is what the public should give this administration to succeed.

That hardly gives Gov. John Baldacci a free pass, and in trying to close the budget gap he opened up himself to protests over cuts to services provided by the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services (BDS). The administration clearly has heard the protests, and budget chief Rebecca Wyke says the cuts to adult mental health community services have been sharply reduced. But that, even if the Legislature finds more money, merely reduces the immediate problem; the larger issues remain to be solved.

BDS and its earlier incarnation were hit with court-ordered consent decrees and settlement agreements that should not have happened in the first place and some of which should have ended by now. Meant as protections for clients, they act as restrictions at budget time and force policymakers within BDS to concentrate cuts in just a few areas. The lack of clear policy has made the nonprofit agencies with which BDS contracts for client services unhappy and financially troubled – they are laying off a lot more workers than the state. An intention by the administration to merge BDS with the Department of Human Services speaks to BDS’ effectiveness as an advocate within the administration for its clients.

Defenders and service providers for the mentally ill and mentally retarded are further angered by the severity of the proposed BDS cuts, even the reduced ones, compared with other budget lines and are quick to notice that the prison system is receiving another budget increase because it has had to exceed its capacity of 1,700 inmates by more than 300. The advocates fairly ask whether many of those in prison would not be there if mental-health services in the community were adequate. It is an example of the department needing to be not merely merged with DHS but given a new mandate and new support to deliver services.

BDS never will have the kind of broad-based public and legislative support given to, for instance, education. But the steep erosion of services has harmed its clients severely and the lack of public understanding of the agency has made those cuts worse. The administration has asked for time to examine the department’s problems in detail and come up with a better way to organize it and provide for its clients. It deserves that time. In the short term, more funding for the department is necessary; long-term, a major overhaul is essential.