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LANCASTER -- The
Fairfield County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board
was able to salvage some funding in the last seconds of finalizing budget
cuts.
Instead of eliminating
the initial projection of $412,000 from its budget, the agency only will
eliminate $321,244 to balance its budget for fiscal year 2005, which
begins July 1, 2004.
"This is based on
preliminary breaking information we just received this week," said Orman
Hall, executive director of the ADAMH Board.
The new projections
could stick, but the board won't know for sure until after the Ohio
Legislature meets, Hall said.
"It's a very rare year
where we know what our state allocations are going to be (ahead of time),"
he said. "We have to prepare in advance. There could be more (savings) or
more reductions after that time."
In addition, the board
now has $33,241 in unallocated funding -- the result of a regional
program, Alternatives For Teens, being eliminated.
"Instead of
maintaining it, we're closing it and moving those funds to our board," he
said. "We will keep that funding at the board level until we determine
what our real Medicaid growth is going to be in the next year and how we
need to handle our detox situation."
Hall also announced
that the court diversion program, services currently being administered by
Mid Ohio Psychological Services Inc., will remain at that agency. A
jail-based program will, however, be moved from Mid-Ohio to New Horizons
Youth and Family Center.
At the last meeting,
Janet Galligan, executive director of the Fairfield Mental Health Consumer
Group, asked the board if a proposed cut of $22,500 be brought down to
$15,000.
The latest projection
enabled the board to honor this request.
"We're really
relieved," Galligan said. "That (savings) will allow us to provide more
hours of respite care and move forward with training for our Listen Line
and Peer Support. We wouldn't be able to do that if that $7,500 had been
cut."
Reductions to other
contracting agencies, including The Lighthouse, The Recovery Center,
Mid-Ohio and New Horizons, will remain the same.
Marc Grodner,
executive director of The Recovery Center, said because of these cuts his
agency will not be able to fill a vacancy for a treatment counselor.
"For us, this is
another series of adjustments we've been making and we're to deal with
this year," Grodner said. "Any additional cuts will seriously compromise
our ability to deliver the most basic drug and alcohol services required
to fulfill our mission."
The agency has gone
from 26 to 19 employees within the last two years through attrition,
Grodner said.
"That's almost a 25
percent reduction on our workforce," he said. "We're restructuring
services to squeeze every ounce of efficiency we can out of our staff, but
the bottom line is we're delivering less services and serving less
people."
Originally
published Wednesday, May 26, 2004 |
