-- A regional mental health service that cares for thousands of Oakland County residents is slashing its staff and programs in an effort to balance its books.
   The embattled Macomb-Oakland Regional Center Inc. has agreed to cut $14 million from its budget over the next two years to preserve its contract with the Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority. State cutbacks forced the county to slash $8.5 million from its mental health services budget, and those cutbacks have rippled out to its contractors.
   The Macomb-Oakland Regional Center, which laid off 52 workers in March, is considering 25-50 additional layoffs and leaving 44 vacancies unfilled. The center also trimmed its budget $3.5 million below last year's level, at Oakland's request. The center's new budget shows additional cuts in administrative management and other services.
   The agency -- the county's largest provider of services to people with developmental difficulties and other mental illness -- also plans to cut some services it isn't required to provide.
   "This is a very challenging time for (the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center)," said Executive Director Jerry Provencal. "We have an obligation to the 3,000 people with disabilities we assist in Oakland County to make the cuts as humanely as possible."
   Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority Executive Director Richard Visingardi called the cuts "some changes in the right direction."
   "(We) have to ensure services to persons with developmental disabilities moves in the direction of improved quality of life and efficient use of resources," he said.
   Like other county mental health authorities around the state, Oakland 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 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 convert to a managed-care system. The state over-counted and overpaid for services to some low-income residents whose Medicare coverage payments vary each month.
   Oakland County has an $18-million shortfall in the 1999-2000 budget and an estimated $10-million overdraft in the fiscal year that ended 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

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Answers

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-- Anonymous, October 07, 2001