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 Administrative money may be pared by 35
M. Paul Jackson JOURNAL REPORTER 

State and local mental-health advocates are concerned about a greater-than-expected budget-cut proposal that they said could make it harder for them to oversee services for mental-health customers.

CenterPoint Human Services, based in Winston-Salem, could have its administrative budget cut by 35 percent, to about $4.2 million, next fiscal year beginning July, advocates said yesterday.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services plans to cut about $36 million from the amount it spends on administrative costs for the state’s 30 mental-health agencies next fiscal year.

The agencies - called local-management entities - had feared possible cuts, but Betty Taylor, CenterPoint’s chief executive, said that the administrative cuts go deeper than expected. The cuts could force the agency to reduce staff, she said.

"Mental-health reform is a dramatic change that’s been implemented in starts and fits, and it’s not where any of us want it to be at the moment," Taylor said.

In October, the state had proposed cutting about $28 million in administrative costs. The General Assembly is expected to vote on the proposed cuts next month.

Most of the cuts will come by consolidating the number of agencies that perform late-night patient-referral and utilization-review services.

The state’s mental-health agencies all provide patient-referral services, but under the state plan, only 10 of those agencies would be responsible for providing after-hour referral services. An after-hours referral is made when a behavioral-health patient calls a toll-free number and is referred to an available provider. (more…)

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