Seven Counties enacts deep cuts

From the Courier-Journal:

Facing a $3 million cut in state funding, Seven Counties Services is cutting jobs and services for people with mental illness and mental disabilities in the Louisville area.

Beginning today, the regional mental health agency will cut as many as 10 staff positions and eliminate programs, including a popular "clubhouse" for teens recovering from drug or alcohol abuse.

"For the last three decades we have seen incredible progress in this business we call behavioral health," said Dean Johnson, the agency's vice president for community relations. "We're reversing that progress."

Seven Counties President Howard Bracco said in an e-mail to employees that the budget was the "most problematic" he has seen in 30 years at the agency, which serves about 32,000 people a year in Jefferson and the six surrounding counties.

"Individuals and families will feel the pain," he said.

Kentucky's 14 community mental health agencies are all seeking ways to manage about $20 million in cuts over the next two years, said Steve Shannon, who represents the agencies. Seven Counties, through its board's action Thursday, is the first to announce specific cuts, he said.

The agencies, which have not had a funding increase for the past 12 years, have nothing left to cut that won't hurt their clients, Shannon said.

"The resources are shrinking while the demand continues to grow," he said.

This is terrible news for Louisville's mental illness community. Seven Counties has been understaffed and cash-strapped for years. These continued cuts to Kentucky's mental health system will cost far more in the long term than these cuts will save in the short term.

These cuts are likely to lead to more people in prison, more people in the hospital instead of getting treated at home, and more families ripped apart by mental health crises.

If you live in Louisville or Kentucky, and you care about the 140,000 mentally ill people in Louisville and the more than 1 million mentally ill people in the Commonwealth, you better start putting the pressure on your elected representatives to find the funding for mental health care. It affects us all.