
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995                   TAG: 9504110043
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUBSTANCE ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH AID KEEP VA. FUNDS

In rejecting Gov. George Allen's plan to distribute lottery profits to local governments, legislators spared a $1.5 million cut to a state network of boards that provide services to children and adults with mental disabilities and substance-abuse problems.

Allen had proposed reducing funding to community services boards to create savings in the state budget, allowing lottery revenues to be returned to localities.

Initially, Allen had proposed cutting $20.8 million from the $557.3 million budget of the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. That would have meant a $6 million reduction in funds for the boards.

But the General Assembly restored those cuts earlier this year and added $1.5 million for community support for clients discharged from state mental health facilities.

Mary Ann Bergeron, executive director of the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards, said Friday that the $1.5 million will support services to people through community services boards in the areas where they choose to live.

The discharged clients "go to where they could be best supported - with a friend or relative," Bergeron said. "But many of these people are kind of alone in the world. These are people who have extremely complex needs. Some of them have spent half or almost their whole lives in institutions and are deemed by institutions as being able to be supported in the community."

The $1.5 million will be matched dollar for dollar with federal Medicaid funding.

That Medicaid dollars are involved "means these are people who are extremely disabled," Bergeron said. "In order to qualify for Medicaid, they have to have a certain level of severity - people who would either be in institutions or in specialized care."

The state's network of 40 community services boards was established 25 years ago to provide services in the community for substance abusers, the mentally ill and mentally retarded.

In proposing the cut, Allen cited what he viewed as the high compensation packages of some of the boards' 40 executive directors. Six of them receive salary and benefits worth more than $100,000 a year.

by CNB