COUNTY BUDGET WOES—WRITE A LETTER

Again this year Santa Clara County has extreme budget problems. And again the County Board of Supervisors is planning major cuts in the budget for the Mental Health Department.

Last year, in large part due to the actions of many NAMI SCC members under the leadership of Past President Navah Statman, the proposed cut of $44 million was eventually reduced to about $16.8 million.

This year the proposed cut is $8 million which will result in a reduction in important services to our members. It is thus imperative that we work to reduce the cut. Please consider writing or calling your supervisor to ask him or her to restore some or all of the proposed cuts.

Here are some of the points you may want to make:

  1. "Saving" money on Mental Health is often an illusion. By reducing services now, the County will spend more money later in more expensive services such as longer hospitalizations and criminal justice costs.
  2. People with severe mental illness are among the most vulnerable of our citizens. We should not balance the budget on the backs of those who can least afford it.
  3. Such a reduction will necessarily lead to lay-offs which will result in a major loss of clinical expertise.
  4. The reduction will drive many who could benefit from lower cost outpatient services into more costly 24-hour service.
  5. The County must not violate the "non-supplantation" clause of Proposition 63 which would likely cause it to lose the funds generated by the Proposition.
  6. Such cuts will almost certainly create more homeless in the County at a time when the County is working diligently to seriously reduce homelessness.
  7. The County has had major cuts in the Mental Health Budget every year since fiscal 2002. During that time there has been a 20% increase in the number of mentally ill persons in the County jail, and the number of unexpected deaths among mental health consumers has risen 46%.

I am sure that you can think of other points to make, and you may want to tell your personal story as it relates to county services or lack thereof.

The address of each of Supervisors Don Gage, Blanco Alvarado, Peter McHugh, Ken Yeager, and Liz Kniss is 70 West Hedding St., San Jose, CA 95110. Their email addresses follow the format: don.gage@bos.sccgov.org . One way to find who is the supervisor for your address is to call the Board office, 408 299-5001, give your address and ask who is your supervisor. Another way is to go to the supervisor list at the end of this article, The list gives the zip codes associated with each supervisor. The problem is that many zip codes have more than one supervisor. Of course, it is fine to send your letter to more than one supervisor.

Thanks for joining us in this important advocacy work!

Here is the supervisor list.

SAMPLE LETTER

April 3, 2008

Supervisor Jane Doe
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
70 West Hedding St.
San Jose, CA 95110

Dear Supervisor Doe:

I ask that you not cut $8 million from the 2008-09 Santa Clara County Mental Health Budget. Please work to restore substantial funds to the Mental Health Budget.

As you know in each of the last 7 or so years the Mental Health Budget has been decreased. This has resulted in thousands of persons with serious mental illness losing mental health services and thousands of others receiving substantially reduced services. The net result has probably saved no money for the County.

Instead, reduced services often result in the ill person eventually needing and receiving more costly services such as hospitalization. Losing mental health services all too frequently results in the ill person ending up in the criminal justice system which results in increased costs to the County.

Cuts in the mental health care harm the most vulnerable among us and simply transfer expenses to other county agencies. Please no cuts this year in the Mental Health Department.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Schmoe
1234 Schmoe Ave.
San Jose, CA 99999