;PONTIAC -- The Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority, struggling to balance a $10-million budget shortfall, is asking one of its main contractors to slash $14 million from its budget over the next two years.
   County mental health officials met with representatives of the Macomb Oakland Regional Center this week for a round of belt-tightening. The county agency already has been forced to cut $8.5 million from its own budget, and now those costs are being passed along to its largest provider of direct services to residents with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses.
   The Macomb Oakland Regional Center, which provides services and support for more than 3,000 county residents, risked losing its contract with the county unless it agreed to trim $7 million a year from its budget for the next two years. The center had already trimmed its budget by $3.5 million from its budget last year and $6 million the year before, at Oakland's request. The agency laid off at least 52 staffers to cover the cuts.
   In addition to the contract cut, the county agency is cutting its administrative staff, streamlining its services and cutting some services to populations it is not mandated to serve.
   "We have a lot of work to do, but I am entering into this new era with a sense of hope and confidence that we will achieve these ends," said Rich Visingardi, mental health authority executive director.
   The county mental health authority has been struggling to cope with an internal budget crisis, as well as a $54-million bookkeeping error in Lansing that has been passed along to Michigan's 49 community mental health boards.
   Last fall, the state discovered that it had been overpaying millions of dollars to Oakland and other agencies since the fall of 1998, when the state began requiring the agencies to covert to a managed-care system. The state over-counted and overpaid for services to some low-income residents whose Medicare coverage payments vary from month to month.
   Oakland County has an $18-million shortfall in the 1999-2000 budget and an estimated $10-million overdraft in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The mental health board contracts with the state to provide health services to adults and children with serious illness or emotional disturbances.

Detroit News

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