Capitol Hill Update
July 27, 2006

Congress Moves to Reject Cuts, Restore Mental Health Funding
Upcoming August Recess Pivotal Time to Meet Members of Congress

The House and Senate appropriations committees have taken important steps in support of our calls to reverse proposed cuts in federal funding for mental health services, supports and research. We will need the full House and Senate to maintain these initial actions to restore funding. The month-long August recess is a good time to talk to your Members of Congress about the importance of maintaining those higher funding levels as well as about other mental health issues -- including the need to enact mental health parity legislation this year. It is also timely and appropriate to inject mental health issues into the dialogue of electoral campaigns, such as by raising questions of candidates at “town hall” meetings and other events.

Health Spending Bills:
Most recently the Senate Appropriations Committee completed its work on the FY 07 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (S 3708) that funds most federal discretionary health programs. The House Appropriations Committee established its funding levels earlier (HR 5647). Both committees, responding to advocacy efforts, have rejected most of the cuts in mental health funding and supports proposed in the Administration’s budget earlier this year, including a proposed 50% cut in HUD section 811 supportive-housing funding. The timing for final action on these spending bills is unresolved.

House
The House took an important first step in restoring the bulk of the proposed cuts to mental health services. Among its actions, the House:

• Restored $13.3 million of a proposed $17.6 million cut to the Safe Schools/Healthy Students program;
• Fully restored funding for State Incentive Grants for Transformation (to $26 million), rejecting a proposed $6 million cut;
• Increased suicide prevention funding by $5 million over last year (to $34.7 million); and
• Included language championed by NMHA that highlights the critical role of communities and consumers in the transformation of the mental health system and “urges SAMHSA to provide a mechanism within its program of State Incentives Grants for Transformation to ensure that modest funding is made available to support full and active participation by community-based organizations representing consumers in all facets of transformation planning and implementation.”

Senate
The Senate bill builds on the House’s effort. Included among its actions, the Senate:

• Fully restored funding for all mental health service accounts targeted for cuts;
• Increased suicide prevention program funding to $40 million;
• Included the language above regarding communities and consumers; and
• Directed SAMHSA to fund the Statewide Consumer Network Grants and the Statewide Family Network Grants at last year’s level – reversing the proposed 50 percent cut to these two modest, but important programs.

Justice Appropriations
Juvenile Justice
The House and Senate appropriations committee restored a substantial amount of the proposed 50 percent cut to juvenile justice programs (to $250 and $276 million, respectively).

Criminalization of Mental Illness
Although the President proposed no funding for this important initiative in his budget, the House and Senate committees allocated $5 million (last year’s funding level) for the so-called Mentally Ill Offender and Treatment Act (P.L. 108-414), which authorizes grants to address the criminalization of people with mental illness through collaborative programs between the criminal justice, juvenile justice and mental health systems.

Housing
For the second year in a row, Congress rejected a proposed 50 percent cut in funding for the HUD Section 811 program.

(Please contact Julio Abreu (jabreu@nmha.org or 202-675-8412), NMHA’s Senior Director of Legislative Affairs, for more information.)