Schumacher: Mental health care is 'balancing act'

Sept. 04--COLUMBUS -- State Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus says the easy part was done a decade ago when regional facilities offering some mental health services were closed.

Now comes the hard part.

The plan was for the state to shift financial responsibility for some treatment from the closed regional facilities in favor of more community-based services. In the years that have followed, state funding resources haven't flowed down to the local level.

Delivering mental health care, whether on the local or statewide levels, is an expensive undertaking, said Schumacher, who served on a special legislative committee studying the issue earlier this year.

"It's one of those balancing acts," said Schumacher, as lawmakers have wrestled with aligning the public's interest in improving mental health treatment with an outcry for tax relief -- property taxes at the local level and income and sales taxes on the state level.

Schumacher estimates that one-third of the inmates housed in the state's crowded prisons and county jails are grappling with mental health issues.

The Columbus senator has been meeting with a local working group to come up with a "legislative suggestion" to address the treatment gaps that have arisen in recent years.

"People are very frustrated with the way things are now. They know it isn't working," he said.

Schumacher said if he and the working group can frame a legislative answer, he would likely be the one to introduce a bill when the Nebraska Legislature returns to Lincoln in January.

"We'll probably know more by the end of the year," he said. "Whether there is the financial will, at the state or local levels, needs to be determined."

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