March 12, 2021

See attached for a document from the National Council that provides more detail regarding the MH and SUD provisions embedded in the recently passed American Rescue Plan that President Biden signed into law yesterday.

The governor’s executive budget proposal (released in January 2021) includes what we refer to as ‘dry appropriations’ for the additional resources coming into NYS (through the SAMHSA SAPT and CMHS Block Grant) from the December 2020 federal budget deal that included significant additional COVID Relief resources for mental health and substance use disorder services.

This week’s COVID Relief deal puts even more funding on the table for mental health and substance use services as well as many other areas of state spending.  We have heard that the Assembly and Senate is trying to include language in their one-house budget bills that would account for these additional funds.  Obviously, our concern is that without specific language included in a final state budget deal, the funds are vulnerable to ‘re-direction’ to the state’s general fund.

The NYS Council has done a lot of education of lawmakers to ensure they have a sense for all of the additional funds coming in to NYS as result of SAMSHA Block Grant increases as well as all of the various FMAP rate increases the state has already/will receive for Medicaid services delivered by mental health and substance use disorder providers.  Generally, FMAP enhancements do not result in a one for one increase in funds for the sectors that offer the services that are getting the enhanced rate.  Instead the state says that these funds are used to ensure adequate funding for the state budget thereby reducing the likelihood of cuts.

Stand by for more.