Gov. Pat Quinn OK’s Restoration of Illinois Substance Abuse Treatment Funding

(Springfield, IL) – Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation Monday that restores $28 million to Illinois substance abuse treatment services that were cut inadvertently earlier this year.

The legislation, Senate Bill 2412, reallocated money within the current Illinois budget to reinstate the treatment funding.

The following budget line items were restored:

• Addiction Treatment Medicaid: $7.6M
• Addiction Treatment Services: $16.9M
• Addiction Treatment for DCFS Clients: $2M
• Addiction Treatment for Special Populations: $1.5M

The bill also includes $30 million for community-based mental health services, mental health centers, burial services for the homeless and the poor, homelessness prevention programs, and need-based financial aid for college students.

Finally, the legislation will ensure that no state-run mental health or developmental disability centers will be closed this fiscal year.

“The successful effort to restore funding to Illinois substance abuse treatment services had many legislative champions, especially Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, State Representatives Sara Feigenholtz, Barbara Flynn Currie, Kenneth Dunkin, Patricia Bellock, and Rosemary Mulligan, as well as State Senators Heather Steans, Dan Kotowski, Jacqueline Collins, William Delgado and Mattie Hunter,” said TASC President Pamela Rodriguez. “We are deeply grateful to them, and to all who voted to restore funding for these essential services.”

The current state budget runs until June 30, 2012.

 

Illinois Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly to Restore Illinois Substance Abuse Treatment Money

TASC, Inc. President Pamela Rodriguez

(Chicago, IL) – The Illinois legislature on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to restore nearly $30 million to community substance abuse treatment providers throughout Illinois, drawing praise from advocates.

“This supplemental budget immediately restores substance abuse treatment money to community care providers who received less money than intended in the state’s original budget,” said State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), chair of the House Human Services Appropriations Committee.

The budget fix, Senate Bill 2412, which shifted money from various state accounts without increasing state spending, added $28 million to substance abuse treatment care and restored spending to other key state programs.

The bi-partisan bill passed the House 92-20, and in the Senate, 50-5.

“We focused on the 99%,” said Feigenholtz. “Our budget priorities reflected their needs.”

The restoration of the substance abuse treatment money for community providers drew deep praise from a top treatment advocate.

“The successful effort to restore funding to Illinois substance abuse treatment services had many legislative champions, especially Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, State Representatives Sara Feigenholtz, Barbara Flynn Currie, Kenneth Dunkin, Patricia Bellock, and Rosemary Mulligan, as well as State Senators Heather Steans, Dan Kotowski, Jacqueline Collins, William Delgado and Mattie Hunter,” said TASC President Pamela Rodriguez. “We are deeply grateful to them, and to all who voted to restore funding for these essential services.”

The legislation also included $30 million for community mental health services.

Governor Pat Quinn is expected to sign the bill.

OUR VIEW: Governor Quinn Should Sign Budget with Restored Funding for Addiction Treatment

TASC appreciates the General Assembly’s work in restoring FY12 funding for addiction treatment and case management. These funds originally had been eliminated in Governor Quinn’s proposed FY12 budget.

Thanks to the House sponsorship of Speaker Michael Madigan and Representative Sara Feigenholtz, along with the Senate Sponsorship of Heather Steans, House Bill 3717 appropriates funding for community-based addiction treatment with only a 1 percent cut from current-year funding. This represents a major victory for sound fiscal and public policy. It also slows a three-year trend of steady funding cuts to the Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse (DASA). 

State budget cuts have resulted in diminished access to addiction treatment for those who seek it—even as new designer drugs emerge and prescription drug abuse is on the rise. DASA’s funding for TASC services has decreased 27 percent in the past three years. We have absorbed these budget cuts through layoffs and service reductions, and we have made further adjustments to maximize the efficiency of our services and the leanness of our infrastructure.

Enough is enough. 

The legislature agrees.

TASC’s statewide services for courts and probation are mandated by law and funded through DASA. Through clinical case management, we place clients into community-based treatment programs, monitor their progress, support their recovery, and make reports to the courts. This balance of opportunity and accountability works: defendants who are sent to TASC are twice as successful in treatment as other criminal justice-referred clients in Illinois. Through TASC’s work, people enter recovery, obtain employment, and reunify with their families.

Illinois taxpayers spend $25,000 to incarcerate a nonviolent, drug-using offender for a year, whereas the cost of community-based drug treatment, combined with TASC supervision, is less than $5,000. Each person sent to TASC and treatment instead of prison saves taxpayers $20,000. When it costs taxpayers five times more to incarcerate a nonviolent offender than it does to treat his or her addiction, the choice is easy.

The decision of the Illinois legislature to restore funds to treatment and case management is not only a sound fiscal decision, but a solid public safety decision as well. For clients mandated to TASC as an alternative to incarceration, arrests for both drug crimes and property crimes were reduced by 71 percent compared to before they came to TASC.

We thank the members of the Illinois House and Senate for restoring these critical funds to save taxpayer dollars and make our communities safer. We urge the Governor to follow suit.

From CCAI: Gov. Pat Quinn Aims to Borrow $900 Million to Ease Illinois Cash Flow Crisis—Madigan, Cullerton, Cross, and Radogno Must Address Longer-Term Illinois Budget Problem

From the Child Care Association of Illinois, of which TASC is a member:
Governor Pat Quinn is planning to borrow $900 million to help cash-strapped Illinois to pay its bills through the winter.

Quinn’s borrowing plan should help newly-appointed Secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services Michelle Saddler to ease the cash flow crisis at the agency and to pay social service providers.

“A Cash flow crisis on top of earlier budget cuts at the Illinois Department of Human Services is creating more risk to reliable care for at-risk youth each day,” said Marge Berglind, President of the Child Care Association of Illinois. “The new borrowing should help Secretary pay the bills.

“The longer-term cash flow problem is not Governor Quinn’s responsibility alone,” said Berglind. “House Speaker Michael Madigan, House Leader Tom Cross, Senate President John Cullerton and Senate Christine Radogno must assume the responsibility as well.”

“The Illinois budget dysfunction is undermining the provision of basic services to its citizens,” Berglind added.

The Child Care Association of Illinois is also raising the provider cash flow problems to House Human Services Appropriations Chair Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) and Senate Appropriations Chair Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), Berglind noted.

Illinois Doomsday Budget Forces TASC to Suspend Addiction Services

(Chicago, IL) — TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities), a not-for-profit helps drug and alcohol addicts get into treatment, is losing 76 percent of its state funding in the Illinois doomsday budget crisis.

Beginning July 1, workers were forced to take two weeks off without pay.

The organization is mandated by the state to evaluate substance abuse addicts and determine an alternative treatment to jail. Without TASC services, addicts who fail to receive treatment are likelier to continue to abuse drugs and alcohol, sending them back in jail, again and again and again.

Governor Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, House Minority Leader Tom Cross, and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno continue budget negotiations.

Lawmakers return to Springfield on July 14.

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DCFS Restores Funds Previously Cut from TASC’s Child Welfare Programs; DHS Funding Cuts Hurting Thousands

(Chicago) — The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has taken the lead in restoring funding to vital human services. Having sent notification in mid-June that TASC’c child welfare programs were being zeroed out, DCFS has restored funds to TASC and other service providers to FY09 contract levels.

TASC’s child welfare staff in Cook County and in Southern Illinois, who had been laid off as of July 1, were called back to work on July 6. Now, these workers are reaching out to the 600+ parents and adolescents who were cut from services at the end of June. The financial and clinical toll of the service disruption will likely not be calculable.

An emergency motion filed by the ACLU argued that a reduction in services would be in violation of a consent decree under which DCFS operates. U.S. District Court Judge John F. Grady concurred, ordering that “the state comply with all provisions of the consent decree, including: maintaining all programs and services that DCFS directs to fulfill the detailed requirements of the consent decree” (MSN Money, June 30, 2009).

 It is a partial victory for thousands in need, yet communities across the state continue to deal with the fallout from the ongoing budget calamity.

“We are pleased that children and families will again have access to our life-changing child welfare services,” said TASC President Pam Rodriguez. “But this represents only a sliver of the funding that needs to be restored. Thousands of individuals remain in crisis – and each day that passes increases the overall cost to our state and taxpaying citizens.”

TASC’s court-based services, which are funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services, have been slashed by 75 percent, and TASC’s community reentry services, funded by the Illinois Department of Corrections, have been cut 25 percent.

One hundred thirty-nine DHS-funded TASC staff are on a two-week unpaid furlough until July 15. More than 1,500 clients have been terminated prematurely from TASC services, and another 1,000 are currently on wait lists across the state.

TASC’s court services, currently suspended, will resume on July 16. The scope and scale of TASC’s service delivery over the coming months remains in question, depending on the timing and the outcome of the budget negotiations in Springfield.

“TASC will continue to aggressively advocate on behalf of the people and communities we serve,” said Ms. Rodriguez. “Now more than ever, as the very infrastructure that serves tens of thousands of Illinoisans is being dismantled, our clients need our strong voices on their behalf.”

The legislature, led by Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan, is due to convene in a joint special session on Tuesday, July 14.