January 22, 2025

While not focused exclusively on mental health and/or substance use disorder executive budget proposals, the Webinar described (below) may be of interest to some of you.  The Fiscal Policy Institute is the progressive-leaning organization that works to bring sound analysis to the budget-making debate.  Their budget briefings are often informative and useful.  Find the link below to register for their first budget briefing for this year.

An upcoming webinar by Westat will present findings from a survey of 133 community-based organizations (CBOs) across 33 states, contributing to a new SAMHSA report. The report explores the financing landscape and challenges faced by CBOs providing mental health and substance use services, with a focus on challenges obtaining public funds such as the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (MHBG) and Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant (SUBG). The webinar will feature a panel discussion and Q&A session with national leaders of community-based behavioral health organizations who will discuss the report findings and strategies for improving their financial sustainability. (Register for the webinar here)
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The Governor’s Executive Budget proposal includes language that permits ‘any person who is eighteen years of age or older, or is the parent of a child, or has married, or is a homeless youth as defined in section five hundred thirty-two-a of the executive law, or receives services at an approved runaway and homeless youth crisis services program or a transitional independent living support program as defined in section five hundred thirty-two-a of the executive law, may give effective consent for medical, dental, health and hospital services, including behavioral health services, for themself, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have become a law.
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Health Home+ Programs (overseen by OMH) are indeed part of the group of OMH provider types that (according to the executive budget) are subject to the Targeted Inflationary Increase (formerly known as the COLA proposal) that the Governor included in her budget.  
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Executive Budget State Workforce proposals include (but are not limited to):

• Build out the “Hiring for Emergency Limited Placement Statewide (HELPS) program, which has increased the state workforce by nearly 5,000 full-time employees since the end of the last fiscal year. The budget also proposes continuing the waiver of civil service examination fees, establishing an optional payment for new state employees during their first weeks on the job and overhauling the civil service merit system.
• Proposes staffing investments to help with retention at multiple agencies, including the Office of Mental Health, Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Office of Information Technology Services and Office of General Services.
• Spends $223 million more on the New York State Health Insurance Program, which Hochul contends reflects medical inflation including the rising cost of prescription drugs. She said the increases will be partially offset by certain benefit design changes achieved through collective bargaining. The changes seek to address the high cost of certain services with a shared goal of making health insurance more affordable for all participants.

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(Politico, 1/22/25)

SOCIAL WORKERS: Social worker advocates rallied on the Million Dollar Staircase today, to garner support for the Social Work Workforce Act, which seeks to eliminate a licensing exam required to enter the field. The piece of legislation, sponsored by Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and state Sen.Samra Brouk, would aim to eliminate barriers for those seeking to enter the workforce.

The bill garnered partisan support in both houses with 25 sponsors in the Assembly and 10 sponsors in the Senate since it was introduced earlier this month.

“Across our state, we are experiencing multiple crises at once: an overdose epidemic, a mental health crisis, a homelessness crisis and more,” Gonzalez-Rojas said in a statement. “It is deeply unjust and an abdication of our responsibility to stand by and allow several diverse and qualified social workers to be excluded from the profession because one vendor, the ASWB, has a monopoly on the licensing exam.”——————————————-

Medicaid is once again facing the prospect of funding cuts and enrollment restrictions, including additional state Medicaid work requirements, under a new president and Congress. What does this all mean for the nation’s largest insurer and for the millions of Americans who depend on Medicaid for their health care needs?

Two Commonwealth Fund explainers offer a clear overview of the key issues:

• What Is Medicaid’s Value? Learn how Medicaid and the eligibility expansion improve health care access and outcomes, how they impact state economies, and more.
• Work Requirements for Medicaid Enrollees. Find out the current status of state work requirement waivers, how these mandates are implemented, and what the evidence shows about their effects on Medicaid enrollment, access to care, and employment. 

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