Mental Health Report

Mental Health Report

A legislative office created to examine the benefit of public programs was ready to give its report last week on the state's mental health services. But the report, "Compromised controls and lack of focus hampered implementation of enhanced mental health services," was cut from the agenda about a week before the Joint Oversight Program Evaluation Committee met. A News & Observer series this year found that the state has wasted at least $400 million on a service of one of the enhanced programs, called community support. The federal government is holding on to $175 million in payments to the state because of suspected abuses in the program.

A chairman of the committee, Sen. Fletcher Hartsell of Concord, said the report was taken off the agenda because the committee didn't have time to talk about it. The mental health report was the only item removed from the revised agenda distributed in advance of the meeting. Hartsell said the committee would get the mental health report back on its agenda. "End of session, probably," he said.

(Dome, THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 5/12/08).