[NYAPRS Enews] Recovery Report: Albany Update, NYAPRS Board Meets with Commissioner Hogan, Seereiter

[Harvey Rosenthal]

R E C O V E R Y    R E P O R T

 

To:            NYAPRS Members and Friends                       February
20, 2007

 

From:        Harvey Rosenthal          Executive Director             

 

Re:   NYAPRS Update on State Budget, Legislative Priorities

          NYAPRS Board Meets with OMH Commissioner Hogan

          Seereiter Appointed Spitzer Deputy Health, Human Services
Secretary

 

Updates: Moving Forward on 2007 NYS Budget, Legislative Agenda

Following are some highlights on a number of NYAPRS members' top state
advocacy priorities for the current legislative session:

 

Boot The SHU: 100 Hour Campaign, Advocates Meeting with State Officials:
NYAPRS and our partners within Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary
Confinement for prisoners with severe psychiatric disabilities are
engaged in a vigorous "100 Hour Campaign" to achieve state adoption of
newly re-introduced legislation that passed both houses last year. Over
the next few days, we're also meeting with Administration & legislative
leaders.

Make 3 Calls TODAY!

* Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - (518) 455-3791

* State Senator Joseph Bruno - (518) 455-3191

* Governor Eliot Spitzer - (518) 474-8390

Tell them:

"I support the SHU Bill (S.333/A.4870) which will prevent people with
psychiatric disabilities from being placed in solitary confinement in
New York State prisons.  I am asking the Legislature and Governor to
make this Bill a priority and to enact it by March 13."

 

Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities: NYAPRS is scheduling meeting with
legislative leaders to seek a $1 million initiative to boost parent
training and support services, expand legal supports and educate judges
and DSS officials about recovery and rights related issues. Look for a
Capitol press conference and advocacy day plans shortly.

 

Civil Commitment: Negotiations are very active between the Governor and
legislative leaders on legislation that would create a legal mechanism
and the funding necessary to commit hundreds of sex offenders to state
psychiatric centers upon their release from prison.  NYAPRS and many
mental health and sex offender victim and treatment groups are urging
state leaders to slow down and adopt a much more comprehensive approach
(see below).

 

Legal Services for Low Income New Yorkers: NYAPRS has joined with our
colleagues in the legal services community seeking a major expansion in
funding to assure that legal services are available to protect basic
human and family rights for low income New Yorkers. We're part of a
campaign that has called for $50 million of new funding in this area,
most of which would be used to create a new Office of Civil Justice;
Governor Spitzer has added $9 million of new funding in this area in his
current budget proposal (see below).

 

Mental Health Housing Campaign, Wait List: Following the state's largest
single mental health rally on January 23, NYAPRS and our colleagues in
the Campaign for Mental Health Housing are moving towards coordinated
local actions in our home districts this March.

March 8-9:  Campaign In-District Lobby Day: members will soon be getting
a toolkit for In-District meetings and other grassroots advocacy and
media activities.

 

Vigorous Implementation of the Most Integrated Setting Coordinating
Council Law: It appears that the Administration will be going forward
with the next meeting of the MISCC this coming Tuesday, February 27.
Stay tuned for more details.

 

Protecting Access to Medications: Look for NYAPRS to join with colleague
groups and legislative leaders to publicly oppose current proposals to
remove the exemption for anti-depressants from the state's Medicaid
Preferred Drug Program.

 

Geriatric Mental Health Services The new OMH Budget proposal
acknowledges the dramatically increasing size of the older adult
population but does not include a growth in funding. NYAPRS and our
friends in for the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance are calling $3
million more for expanded geriatric mental health services and for
training and workforce development. The funds could be used for nursing
and adult home diversion services, family support, crisis services,
cultural competent services for minority populations and integrated
behavioral and physical health care initiatives. 

 

Multicultural Centers of Excellence: Members of the NYAPRS Public Policy
and Executive Committees are to meet with bill sponsors and Mental
Health Committee Chairs Assemblyman Peter Rivera and Senator Thomas
Morahan.

 

Enhancing Funding for Community Mental Health Services: Look for a
packet of materials to use to press for adoption of a permanent COLA
(we're in the 2nd of a 3 year COLA now) and for an emergency $10 million
adjustment for community recovery services. 

 

Adult Home Residents with Psychiatric Disabilities: As a member of the
NYS Coalition for Adult Home Reform, NYAPRS is pushing for a set-aside
500 or 25% of the new 2,000 additional supported housing and single-room
occupancy (SRO) apartments funded in the Office of Mental Health Budget
for people with psychiatric disabilities living in adult homes and $2
million for 3 housing application assistance offices to assist adult
home residents to successfully apply for and move to more independent
housing.

-----------

 

NYAPRS Board of Directors Meets with OMH Commissioner Hogan: After
highlighting our February 6the Legislate Day (where he spent
considerable time 'meeting and greeting' NYAPRS members after his public
remarks), new OMH Commissioner Michael Hogan lunched with the NYAPRS
Board last Thursday. The Commissioner was very warmly received by Board
members, who offered their full support for a variety of efforts to help
transform New York's mental health system and to boost the self
determination and community integration of our community. More details
in our next Recovery Report. 

 

Seereiter Appointed Deputy Health, Human Services Secretary: NYAPRS
wishes to share our great appreciation and encouragement at NYS Governor
Eliot Spitzer's decision to install Michael Seereiter as his new Deputy
Secretary for Health and Human Services. Over the past 5 years as public
policy director for the Mental Health Association of NYS, Mike has
gained the great respect, appreciation and affection of peers,
providers, advocates and government officials alike for his great
dedication to advancing the lives of New Yorker with mental
disabilities. Mike's tireless enthusiasm, great analytical and
networking abilities and his tireless 'eyes on the prize' commitment
will allow him to make great contributions to an Administration that has
come out of the box making a lot of the right moves in the past 7 weeks.
Best of luck Michael: we look forward to accomplishing great things for
New Yorkers with disabilities over the coming years!  (see below).

 

------------

 

Committing To A Quick Fix: Mental-Health Experts Caution Against Moving
Ahead With The Civil Confinement Of Sex Offenders

by Chet Hardin   Metroland   February 15, 2007  

Eliot Spitzer last year as a candi-date and this year as governor has
expressed his resolve to enact a civil-commitment law," said Christine
Pritchard, a spokeswoman for the governor's office. He made this resolve
very clear in his first budget by allocating $46 million to the state
Office of Mental Health to civilly confine in its facilities violent sex
offenders. While this budgetary move is sure to be a popular one, there
are many people in the mental-health community who regard it with
concern. 

"This is something that has been proposed in the past, creating these
units in mental-health facilities geared toward holding sexual
offenders," said Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association of
New York State. "But it is something that we have fought for several
years, on several fronts. We just don't think that this is good public
policy."

"The mental-health system should not be identified as the resource for
sexual offenders," he added. "I think it is absolutely detrimental to
mental-health patients."

Liebman's reasons are threefold. First, there is a safety issue. People
with mental illness, he said, are 12 times more likely to have been
abused in their lives than the average individual. Placing a predatory
criminal into a vulnerable population could be disastrous. 

Second, he continued, there is already a stigma attached to mental
illness. In using mental-health facilities to confine sex offenders,
there is a latent equating of the mentally ill with sexual offenders,
which is incorrect and dangerous. 

"It sets us back years," he said.

The third major issue is funding. Though Spitzer's budget is an
improvement on past budgets, mental-health funding is not spectacular,
he said. 

"With funding in the mental-health budget to house sexual offenders, we
fear there will eventually be less money to house people with mental
illness," Liebman said. "You look at the people who will be housed as
sexual offenders, and that number will likely increase, not decrease."
With this increased number, he said, the mental-health community at
large could see its vital resources depleted as money shifts to the
specific needs of housing sex offenders. 

"I have not seen one study that shows that civil commitment is effective
in reducing the number of sexual assaults in our communities," said
Richard Hamill, president of the Alliance of Sex Offender Service
Providers. "It has a negligible effect." 

In fact, he said, the majority of states don't use civil commitment, and
two of the states that do are working now to dismantle the systems that
they have set up. The No. 1 reason that states abandon civil commitment
is cost. Due to the unique legal requirements of civil commitment, which
include 31 hours a week of treatment, the cost of holding violent
offenders is roughly $250,000 per person per year. And in a system that
only 1 to 3 percent of the people committed to ever leave, the costs
quickly become overwhelming. 

"All of us who work in the field have come across someone we don't feel
should be in the community," Hamill said. "There are some really
dangerous sex offenders. Our hope is that they would be kept in
corrections facilities where they cost $30,000 [per person] as opposed
to the mental-health facilities that cost a quarter-million."

What experts in the field of sexual offenses are suggesting, Hamill
said, is that the justice system do a better job evaluating sex
offenders prior to sentencing and give the most dangerous much longer
sentences, including lifelong probation after release. 

"What I am hoping the governor will do is draw together a task force to
take a look at this and then to craft a much broader kind of bill that
would address sex-offender management. We need to take a look at all of
the components that ought to be put in place." 

The governor and the lawmakers, he said, need to take a look at the
comprehensive picture of dealing with sex offense. From prevention and
education programs in the schools, to assisting investigations, to what
can be done for victims, the issues surrounding sex offenses are complex
and intertwined.

"I am afraid that we will create a system that will be very hard to
undo," Hamill said, "and that we are going to be fashioning all the
other sex-offender-management strategies in the state around [civil
commitment]. It will become more of an obstacle than something
positive."

----------

Gov. Spitzer's Budget Adds Money for Legal Services for Poor

By MARK JOHNSON   Associated Press    February 19, 2007

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Michele Bulson of Troy was trapped in an abusive
marriage and wanted to get out, but the disabled 37-year-old lives on a
fixed income and couldn't afford a lawyer. 

Last year, thanks to help from The Legal Project, an Albany area
non-profit group providing legal services for the poor, she was able to
navigate divorce and domestic violence proceedings and finally move on. 

"I can honestly say that without the program I would still be married,"
she said. "They went to court with me whenever I needed it. They
supported me in everything." 

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed spending $36 million on legal services
for the poor in his $120.6 billion budget. That's up $9 million from the
current year's budget, budget division spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said.
The money comes from a variety of sources, including for the first time
general fund money raised through taxes, advocates said. 

Still, legal advocates say more needs to be done. 

"If you're living in poverty, your life intersects with the law in so
many ways," said Anne Erickson, chief executive of the non-profit Empire
Justice Center. "You may have rights and protections, but no way to
assert them if you don't have an attorney. You're often up against the
government, a well funded landlord or an employer." 

The center's clients often run into legal issues involving the denial of
Social Security benefits, government assistance or health care,
evictions, and child custody, among other things, she said. 

New York State Bar Association President Mark Alcott said that while the
funding provided by Spitzer marks "historic progress," the state will
still trail many others in such funding. 

"There are many states that provide far more than New York does," he
said, noting an estimated 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go
unmet nationwide each year. "New York should be a leader in this area." 

On a per-poor-person basis, the state has provided only about $2.54 in
civil legal funding annually from its general fund, which in the past
has been added to the executive budget by the Democrat-led state
Assembly. 

New York's general fund per-person spending compares with $23.44 in New
Jersey, $16.50 in Massachusetts and $32.33 per person in Minnesota,
according to statistics compiled by the American Bar Association. Seven
states provide no general-fund appropriations for such services. 

The $36 million proposed by Spitzer includes federal money and money
earned from interest on attorney trust accounts, amounts that can vary
from year to year. Only $4.6 million comes from the general fund. 

Erickson and other legal service groups say boosting the state's general
obligation funding to $50 million annually would provide $18.50 in legal
service funding per poor person in New York. 

E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a group
that tracks state spending, pointed to Spitzer's inclusion of the money
in his spending plan as reason why the governor should not allow
lawmakers to add hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to the
budget this year as they have in the past. 

"I think there are a number of ways the budget makes concessions to the
Legislature," McMahon sad. "A lot of old fights that have gone by the
wayside here. For all the public combativeness in his relationship with
the Legislature, the budget is very Assembly friendly." 

 

Spitzer Appoints Seereiter Deputy Secretary For Health 

By SARI ZEIDLER   Legislative Gazette   February 20, 2007

Michael Seereiter, public policy director for the Mental Health
Association of New York, has accepted a position as Gov. Eliot Spitzer's
deputy secretary for health and human services.

Seereiter worked at the Mental Health Association for four and a half
years and previously worked in state government in the Assembly mental
health committee.

Calling the law "a milestone," Seereiter said he is most proud of the
work he did with the Mental Health Association to help pass Timothy's
Law, which requires health insurance companies to cover a broader
spectrum of mental health disorders. 

Seereiter said he is looking forward both to continuing his work on the
mental health issues he dealt with at the Mental Health Association, as
well as working on behalf of people with addiction and developmental
disorders.

Seereiter said developmental disorders "are an issue that's close to my
heart, because I have a brother with Down Syndrome." He said it is a
personal interest he turned into a profession. 

During his time at the Mental Health Association, Seereiter was credited
with keeping the association's affiliates aware of legislation and
public policy.

 

 

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