Georgia Lawmaker, Advocates Question State’s Plan to Merge Community Mental Health Boards

A plan to merge Georgia's community mental health offices is "drawing fire" from state House Majority Leader Larry Walker (D) and some mental health advocates, the Macon Telegraph reports. The proposal would merge 20 of 26 community service boards -- local, independently operated offices that offer mental health services for individuals with mental illness, mental retardation and drug addiction -- dropping the number of such boards to 16 by July 2003. Karl Schwarzkopf, director of the Georgia Department of Human Resources' Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Diseases, said the restructuring aims to "cut administrative costs without cutting into client services," adding that the state would save about $2.6 million per year. Schwarzkopf is leaving the decision of which boards should "survive and which should disappear" to the agencies themselves. Georgia is also trimming the number of regional offices, which review the boards. In a letter to Jim Martin, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Walker said that the consolidation "will harm mental health services." Kristina Simms, director of the Central Georgia branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, said, "I am very concerned about these proposed new cuts. I would feel better if the millions saved were going into more community-based services for consumers, but I see no indication that this will happen." Don Blair, director of the Phoenix Center Behavioral Services Board, added, "Mental health budgets statewide have been stagnant over the last 10 years. This is not a time to be reducing staff and consolidating centers. It would appear that mental health continues to be a low priority in Georgia" (Schanche, Macon Telegraph, 9/4).