Senator Edwin Erickson (R) has agreed to introduce The Mental Health and Mental Retardation Maintenance of Community Services Act as he did last session. Senator Erickson’s bill will be a companion bill to Rep. George Kenney’s HB 2160 and Rep. Barbara McIlvaine-Smith’s HB 2241, requiring the Secretary of the Budget to include in the Department of Public Welfare budget a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for mental health (MH), mental retardation (MR), and drug and alcohol programs that would be tied to the Home Health Market Basket Index (HHMBI). The HHMBI for the current fiscal year is three percent. The index would ensure modest increases for programs within its scope, enabling providers to keep up with increasing costs. This legislation would help to maintain stability of the community-based MH/MR system and thus ensure the health and safety of consumers served. The legislation includes a stipulation that funding allocated through the Department of Public Welfare to counties only be utilized to increase the rates or amount of funding for existing community-based MH/MR services. A co-sponsorship letter is currently circulating through the Senate. To date 12 senators have agreed to co-sponsor the bill. These include Sens. Baker, Costa, Gordner, Greenleaf, Logan, McIlhinney, O’Pake, Orie, Rafferty, Tomlinson, Wonderling, and Wozniak. There are 13 senators who co-sponsored Erickson’s bill from last session (SB 1006) who have not yet signed on to the current effort: Sens. Fontana, Musto, Mary Jo White, Earll, Tartaglione, Pileggi, Boscola, Rhoades, Waugh, Kitchen, Mellow, Vance, and Scarnati. PCPA members are urgently requested to contact their senators as soon as possible and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor of Senator Erickson’s COLA legislation. The co-sponsorship letter is attached. Further questions may be directed to Anne McHugh Leisure.
