Lawmakers shore up mental-health budget

Utah lawmakers made their list of spending priorities Monday and checked it twice — dressing like Santa for some and appearing as Scrooge to others.

"As a mental health advocate, I am extremely grateful," said Vicki Cottrell, head of Utah's chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

After caucusing and wrangling over lunchtime, Republican leadership agreed to spend an additional $1.5 million to shore up federal funding gaps to community mental health centers, bringing the total to $2 million.

On Friday, that number was just $500,000 of the $3 million originally requested, but advocates' lobbying was able to loosen the wallet.

Budget squabbles remain far from over, however, as continued disagreements over dipping into money set aside for the state's rainy day fund stalled one of two supplemental appropriation bills Monday evening.

The approval of $4.5 million for a new veterans' home in northern Utah was the hitch. While agreed upon in the House, the Senate refused to go along with the appropriation. That means the bill will now be sent to a conference committee made up of three members from each body to reach a compromise.

Legislators also moved to fund some other projects Monday.

In many cases, the money for the projects was shifted from a similar purpose — such as moving $1 million from the $19 million for tourism promotion to create a motion picture incentive fund.

The mental health funding came at a cost to the long-fought effort to restore cuts made to adult dental vision benefits in the state's Medicaid program, with lawmakers taking $500,000 from a previous allocation of more than $3 million and redirecting it to mental health. They also grabbed $500,000 from the state Department of Corrections budget to plug the shortfall, a move seen as retaliatory by some advocates after prison director Scott Carver predicted inmate populations would grow if preventative mental health treatments go lacking.

At the same time, some significant proposals remain unfunded, making their future look "bleak," House budget chairman Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, said.

Those include a $6.2 million need for the Drug Offenders Reform Act, up to $15 million for beginning teacher incentives, and $2.5 million for a bill which would allow patients to choose their doctors. Among the new items funded:

• $250,000 to develop a pornographic materials registry and to create an educational program for parents about how to protect their children from Internet pornography.

• $245,100 for a new juvenile judge in the 2nd District.

• $3 million for a brain imaging machine at the University of Utah as part of the Utah Science, Technology and Research Initiative.

Still remaining in the budget process is a second public education appropriations bill and the Bill of Bills, which is passed the final night in order to balance the budget. That bill will include the fiscal note bills and any other last-minute funding.

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E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com; jloftin@desnews.com