Proposed budget cuts are deep enough to be felt by almost anyone

Perhaps you don't think cuts in state programs for the mentally ill make any difference to you or your family.

Think again when you're waiting for a bed in the emergency room and can't get one because so many of the beds are taken up by psychiatric patients with nowhere else to go.

Think again as the clearly mentally ill approach you on the street when they're off their meds under the misapprehension you are their friend .... or even worse, their enemy.

Think again when you become so depressed you see suicide as your best option and there's no help to persuade you otherwise.

The harmful cuts of the past are the proposals of the future.

Gov. Jim Gibbons wants to do in 2009 what Gov. Bob Miller did in 1992, cut deeply into mental heath services as one way to balance the budget.

After the economy faltered in 1991, and Miller had to balance the state budget in 1992, the Democratic governor began by cutting $53 million and laying off 266 workers, including 131 in mental health and most of the rest from prisons. Ultimately, Miller had to cut $174 million from that budget in 1992, chump change by today's standards.

The Republican governor is trodding the same path.

Gibbons' goal is to cut $130 million per year for fiscal year 2010 and 2011 just in the Department of Health and Human Services. It's part of his larger goal of cutting another 14 percent to 18 percent from the next budget and remain true to his unwavering pledge not to raise taxes under any circumstances.

Mental health services expanded under Gov. Kenny Guinn are now endangered by Gibbons' carving knife.

Under Guinn, Nevada ranked as the 40th lowest in per capita spending on mental health. Meanwhile, Nevada remains number two in suicides and number one in suicides for those 65 and older. Gosh, why would Nevada need mental health services?

"This is a horrible, horrible list," Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley said Tuesday, gazing almost in disbelief at five pages of health and human services cuts Gibbons plans to propose to the next Legislature. She's not just referring to the cuts to the mentally ill, although that division would lose 168 jobs, mental health facilities would be closed and services would be drastically limited.

Some 380 disabled children would feel cuts to Early Intervention Services. Plans include laying off 14 people and closing two offices. Staff has already been told they might not have jobs come July 1. (This is the agency that reported the parents of Jason Rimer to Child Family Services before he died after being left in the family vehicle overnight.)

Nevada Check-Up, the program to help poor children get medical care, is on the block. Instead of adding more children, they'll take the stingy approach and cap the number of children at 25,000, even though the program now serves 30,000.

Those are just a few of the proposed cuts.

The poor, the hungry, the elderly, the sick, the autistic, the disabled -- all will feel it.

Some will cry out in anger. Others will just limp away.

Buckley insisted there are other options so the state's next budget won't be so devastating to the state's weakest citizens. However, she predicted that by the time the Legislature begins next February, the cuts needed to balance the budget will be up to 20 percent.

Asked whether she can come up with alternatives to massive cuts in the health and human services budget, Buckley had a one-word answer: "Absolutely."

One suggestion she offered: Review those tax breaks designed to spark economic development, tax savings that reduce the state's coffers by $130 million a year. (Businesses enjoying those tax breaks are bound to squeal.)

While aghast at the list, Buckley didn't discount all the ideas on the list as bad ones, saying she needed more details on how some would work.

If the Assembly speaker finds a way to avoid gutting mental health services, perhaps you'll have a fighting chance of getting that ER bed. If not, take a number and wait ... and hope you don't get the bed next to the screaming psych patient.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.