Human service cuts spotlighted
Providers decry long waits for help

By Bill Novak
July 8, 2004

Email this story to a friend Printer-friendly format Tell us what you think Write a letter to the editor.

The most disadvantaged citizens in Dane County could be put into a "dangerous" situation if budgetary support isn't enough to sustain the huge array of human services offered, the leader of a consortium of service providers said Wednesday.

At a news conference on the steps of the City-County Building, Lynn Brady of Consortia United was one of several care provider leaders protesting County Executive Kathleen Falk's budget reduction requirements in the Human Services Department.

Falk's orders to department heads for the 2005 county budget calls for a $4.5 million overall reduction in spending out of an expected $400 million budget. That's much less than the $12 million in cuts in 2004, but the reductions will still have a dramatic effect on Human Services, the county's largest department.

Service providers didn't get a cost of living wage increase in 2004 because of the cuts, and many fear they'll face a similar situation in the next budget. That could drive care providers out of the industry, put additional stress on overworked staff members and cause hundreds of people in need to wait weeks to get the necessary care.

"At the Mental Health Center, we've already reduced the number of hours we can have face-to-face with our clients," Brady said. "Any time one of our clients is in danger, it can be a danger for the entire community. It's a shame."

Dane County Board Supervisor Beth Gross chairs the Health and Human Needs Committee. She said service providers aren't asking for additional funding, just sufficient funding to provide for the needs of the county's most vulnerable residents.

"There is no more precious resource in Dane County than its people," Gross said. "We cannot simultaneously pay lip service to the priority we place on our citizens and the pride we feel in our social service model, and yet continue to decimate its resources year after year."

Olwen Blake, regional director for REM-Wisconsin and spokesperson for the Dane County Developmentally Disabled Coalition, said every dollar cut from the tax levy for the service providers amounts to a $2 cut in the ability to sustain services.

"We are expected to make a 3 percent cut next year," Blake said. "We had a 4 percent cut this year. We have 270 people on our waiting list as of today."

Blake said the community needs to ascertain how much risk it's willing to live with if the most needy can't get help in a timely fashion.

"We have serious concerns about safety," she said. "We've pushed it as far as you can go."

Paul Pacheco, chair of the Dane County Chemical Dependencies Consortium, said the service providers will not be able to provide 100 percent quality service with only 80 percent funding.

"Treatment is getting hard to access," Pacheco said. "We have a waiting list of 200 people to get counseling and they'll have to wait up to 15 weeks; some will receive no help at all."

Linda Keys, chair of the Adult Mental Health Coalition Action and Advocacy Committee, said it makes fiscal sense to properly fund service providers because it keeps people out of institutions.

"The cost (for one person) at Mendota Mental Health Institute is $651 a day or $237,615 a year," Keys said. "For a person with high needs to be treated within the community it only costs $8,700 a year.

"We must warn this community that money taken from community services will result in inpatient expansion as people will not receive the relatively inexpensive treatment that would prevent the need for a hospital."

County Board Supervisor Eileen Bruskewitz of the Health and Human Needs Committee said the county might see a substantial increase in tax revenues because of an increase in equalized values for Dane County properties, which could help the service providers if less is required to be cut in 2005.

"The first role of government is to protect its citizens," Bruskewitz said. "We need to spend money intelligently and compassionately."

The Health and Human Needs Committee will hold hearings around the county this summer and fall to get public input on how the county's tax dollars should be spent.

Gross said it's time for the public to stand up and say "enough is enough."

"This assault on human needs has got to stop," she said.

E-mail: bnovak@madison.com

Published: 10:07 AM 7/8/04