From the Salem Statesman Journal, February 28 2009

Angry union workers at the Oregon State Hospital staged a march on the superintendent’s office Thursday, protesting a proposal by Gov. Ted Kulongoski that state employees take 24 unpaid furlough days and a wage freeze during the next two years.

More than 70 hospital employees crowded into the work space just outside hospital Superintendent Roy J. Orr’s office just after 12:30 p.m.

The confrontation was part of a statewide labor action organized by union officials Thursday to protest Kulongoski’s contract offer, said Ed Hershey, a spokesman for Local 503 of Service Employees International Union.

State workers across Oregon were urged to gather and confront the highest-ranking manager at their work site, he said.

Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 75 also took part. Both unions represent different groups of employees at the state hospital.

People shouted “Let’s go!” as the crowd piled up the steps of the state hospital’s administration building and into Orr’s office. Orr emerged from his office, calm but visibly surprised by the group.

“This current contract proposal is insulting,” Dan Smith, a hospital psychologist and an SEIU board member, told Orr. “Will you pass that message along for us?”

“I’ll convey the sentiment you just conveyed to me,” Orr responded. “Yes, I will. Message received.”

Workers at the state hospital are concerned that the furlough days will lead to unsafe conditions, because there needs to be a minimum amount of staff there at all times. The hospital has been understaffed for years.

“It’s an entirely different situation than people who work downtown,” said AFSCME spokesman Don Loving. “These are 24-7 secure facilities. People at the state prisons are facing the same problem with these unpaid leave days.”
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The encounter was peaceful and afterward, Orr and employees shook hands as they filed out of the room. Some remained behind to ask more questions.

The march began with an informational session scheduled in a cafeteria on the hospital’s north campus. The workers were briefed by union officials on a contract proposal by Kulongoski that all union workers take 24 unpaid days off during the 2009-11 budget.

The governor proposed that 14 of those furlough days be taken on state holidays. Workers would still take the holidays off, but would not be paid for them. Only Veterans Day and New Year’s Day would remain as paid holidays.

Kulongoski also has proposed a total wage freeze for state employees, taking both cost-of-living increases and step increases off the table for the coming biennium.

The state is facing an estimated $3 billion budget shortfall during the next two years beginning July 1, and the contract concessions are part of cuts being made throughout state government to address the budget crisis.

Hisses and boos punctuated Smith’s presentation as he laid out the governor’s proposal to more than 100 workers who had gathered in the cafeteria at noon.

Union officials told the assembled group that SEIU and AFSCME will be sharing information as they pursue separate contract talks with the state, denying state negotiators the opportunity to play one union off the other. SEIU represents about 23,000 state workers, and AFSCME represents about 8,000 employees.
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There already are signs of that happening, said Dr. Lorraine Skatch, one of the hospital’s psychiatrists and president of the AFSCME local representing physicians there.

Part of the state’s proposal to SEIU is that its workers take two additional furlough days during the current budget period, which ends June 30. But the state did not make that demand of workers represented by AFSCME.

“Everyone here at Oregon State Hospital needs to work together to get the best for us,” Skatch said. “How are we going to tell doctors, ‘Come work for the state. You’ll have nine holidays. You’ll only get paid for two of them, but you will get the time off.’”

Smith declared that members needed to tell legislators and Orr of their displeasure at the governor’s contract proposal. Another hospital employee and SEIU board member, Randy Davis, responded that the group should take immediate action.

“Do you want to go tell him now?” Davis said in a booming voice. The assembled workers cheered in response. “Do you want to? Do you? Then let’s go tell them this is not a fair contract.”

With that, the agitated group stood up and started walking to the superintendent office, which is on the south campus across Center Street. Traffic stood still as they walked across and up to Orr’s office.

After meeting with Orr, the workers filed out and headed back to work.

“I can’t afford this,” said Sandy Brinlee, a timekeeper and office specialist at the hospital. She said she brings home $1,600 per month, and her husband has been laid off for three months from his construction job. “This will devastate my family.”

Davis said he doesn’t see how the furlough will work at the state hospital.

“We’re responsible every day to take care of the patients here,” he said. “If you furlough me, you have to get someone to fill in for me at time-and-a-half. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s an entirely different situation than people who work downtown,” said AFSCME spokesman Don Loving. “These are 24-7 secure facilities. People at the state prisons are facing the same problem with these unpaid leave days.”

The encounter was peaceful and afterward, Orr and employees shook hands as they filed out of the room. Some remained behind to ask more questions.

The march began with an informational session scheduled in a cafeteria on the hospital’s north campus. The workers were briefed by union officials on a contract proposal by Kulongoski that all union workers take 24 unpaid days off during the 2009-11 budget.

The governor proposed that 14 of those furlough days be taken on state holidays. Workers would still take the holidays off, but would not be paid for them. Only Veterans Day and New Year’s Day would remain as paid holidays.

Kulongoski also has proposed a total wage freeze for state employees, taking both cost-of-living increases and step increases off the table for the coming biennium.

The state is facing an estimated $3 billion budget shortfall during the next two years beginning July 1, and the contract concessions are part of cuts being made throughout state government to address the budget crisis.

Hisses and boos punctuated Smith’s presentation as he laid out the governor’s proposal to more than 100 workers who had gathered in the cafeteria at noon.

Union officials told the assembled group that SEIU and AFSCME will be sharing information as they pursue separate contract talks with the state, denying state negotiators the opportunity to play one union off the other. SEIU represents about 23,000 state workers, and AFSCME represents about 8,000 employees.

There already are signs of that happening, said Dr. Lorraine Skatch, one of the hospital’s psychiatrists and president of the AFSCME local representing physicians there.

Part of the state’s proposal to SEIU is that its workers take two additional furlough days during the current budget period, which ends June 30. But the state did not make that demand of workers represented by AFSCME.

“Everyone here at Oregon State Hospital needs to work together to get the best for us,” Skatch said. “How are we going to tell doctors, ‘Come work for the state. You’ll have nine holidays. You’ll only get paid for two of them, but you will get the time off.’”

Smith declared that members needed to tell legislators and Orr of their displeasure at the governor’s contract proposal. Another hospital employee and SEIU board member, Randy Davis, responded that the group should take immediate action.

“Do you want to go tell him now?” Davis said in a booming voice. The assembled workers cheered in response. “Do you want to? Do you? Then let’s go tell them this is not a fair contract.”

With that, the agitated group stood up and started walking to the superintendent office, which is on the south campus across Center Street. Traffic stood still as they walked across and up to Orr’s office.

After meeting with Orr, the workers filed out and headed back to work.

“I can’t afford this,” said Sandy Brinlee, a timekeeper and office specialist at the hospital. She said she brings home $1,600 per month, and her husband has been laid off for three months from his construction job. “This will devastate my family.”

Davis said he doesn’t see how the furlough will work at the state hospital.

“We’re responsible every day to take care of the patients here,” he said. “If you furlough me, you have to get someone to fill in for me at time-and-a-half. It doesn’t make sense.”

From the Portland Mercury, February 25 2009

One of Oregon’s most prominent civil rights attorneys compared Officer Jeff Myers to a Nazi in open court this morning. The attorney, Elden Rosenthal, was hired by the ACLU of Oregon last December to fight Myers’ secret list in court.

“After the hearing last month, I got a call from an editorial writer at the Oregonian, and she was very antagonistic towards me,” said Rosenthal, at this morning’s closing arguments hearing in the secret list case. “She asked me what my problem was, she said that Officer Myers is the face of community policing in Portland, and I said that one of the most efficient police forces in history was Hitler’s.”

“But I told her, we’re a long ways from the gestapo,” Rosenthal continued. “We have a bill of rights, which says that we don’t go over that fence. And this is a fence issue.”

“We are over that fence and out in the front yard,” Rosenthal said, referring to the list. “The bill of rights is supposed to protect the house, but we’re endangering the house. The principal at stake is not wanting to collect secret police lists. Secret police lists have never come to any good, wherever they are used. There’s just too much opportunity for abuse.”

The Oregonian ran an editorial supporting the secret list on January 8, accusing Rosenthal of “working off an old model, in which a secret list of names inevitably breeds abuses. The reality is that this list epitomizes community policing,” it said.

Judge Dale Koch now plans to make a constitutional ruling on the list program on March 11.

“I’m speechless when someone makes a comparison between this program and the Nazis,” said Myers, when the Mercury asked him about the comparison, after the hearing. “It seems inappropriate to me.”

Myers said the intent of the program is to limit people’s exposure to the criminal justice system by getting them drug treatment.

“Any kind of comparison to Hitler or the Nazis doesn’t seem appropriate,” he said.

EXTRA – Judge ponders whether Portland police violate Constitution with secret list, Oregonian 2 25 2009

OUR COMMENT – Mr. Rosenthal has asked the Portland Mercury to retract it’s headline of this story. They have refused, writing their reporting is accurate. If the Mercury retracts, this post will be removed.

From the Curry County Coastal Pilot, February 25 2009

Curry County Clinical Director of Mental Health and the Drug and Alcohol Program, Teri Bell, has resigned and is leaving Curry County to return to Reno, Nev., in April.

“I didn’t want to retire,” Bell said. She explained that, because of stringent budget cuts, her position had become untenable. “It’s not because the job is harder. It’s more a matter of survival,” she said.

As she talked, it became apparent that her strong desire is to help people overcome addictions and disabilities. She said she had earned awards for her work in drug and alcohol and domestic violence treatment in Reno when she applied for a job as county prevention coordinator for Curry County.

She said she had served in treatment long enough. “I wanted to try prevention,” she said.

When she was hired and came to Curry County in January 1999, the full-time prevention position was funded by a grant. “But, the situation changed in mid-2000,” Bell said.

At that time the private nonprofit organization that had been providing the drug and alcohol and domestic violence treatment program for Curry County, left the county, and Bell was asked to assume responsibility for that program as well.

Bell became clinical director for prevention and treatment programs for alcohol and drug, domestic violence, gambling, disabilities, and mental health for the county in addition to the prevention programs.

In 2002 the major state funding cuts began. “When I started, we had 38 employees for treatment and prevention programs. There are now 20 employees, with only eight in mental health,” Bell said.

For the last seven years, while serving as clinical director for prevention and treatment, in all of those programs, the funding has been drying up.

“It’s just an impossible situation,” Bell said. She said that during nights and weekends there is only one person to serve in a crisis situation.

“There’s no place to put someone who is suicidal. You can’t get a bed, and there’s no transportation. There are more budget cuts coming and there’s nothing left to cut. It’s so bleak it’s time for me to get out and do something else” Bell added.

In addition to her job in social services, trying to help people in trouble, Bell has also been volunteering at His Haven of Hope once a week, working with early recovery and other issues, as well as helping at the Chetco Activity Center.

She is retuning to Reno where she has a home.

“I don’t plan on retiring from service work,” she said. “I have a little Social Security and my home in Reno was paid off last year. There’s a big veterans’ clinic there and I can volunteer to help veterans returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and I’ll be able to help in other places that can’t afford to pay.”

“I need a challenge, and unfortunately, when funding stops social services are cut. That’s short sighted, but that’s the way it is. In a survival mode there’s no chance for creativity or change You can’t do program development or get to more effective services when there’s no funding.”

Curry County Director of Human Services Joe Adair said, “It’s true. Our services are becoming more limited. She’s at retirement age and no doubt tired of fighting the good fight.”

Adair explained that with budget cuts over the years and decrease in state hospital beds it often requires searching across the state to find room for those with mental health and addiction issues who need treatment.

“With all of the cuts, we can no longer serve people without funds other than those in the Oregon Health Plan with mental health approval. “It’s a struggle,” he emphasized.

Bell said she looks forward to working in a volunteer situation where she can say, “Gee, I’d like to develop this program,” and feel there’s a chance to go for it.

Bell has a masters’ degree in education and certification in mental health services in Nevada and Oregon, plus years of other training and experience that she wants to continue to use to help those in need.

Her original training in health and education was obtained during her seven years in the U.S. Air Force when she transferred from her job as a Russian linguist. “I got bored with my spy job, just sitting and listening to Russian broadcasts,” she said. When she discovered an opening in a night school program for drug and alcohol treatment and she applied for a transfer to the training program.

Returning to her home in Nevada will be a bit like coming round full circle for Bell, as she plans to use skills learned in the Air Force to help service personnel overcome disabilities and addictions.

Press release from the Oregon Partnership, February 23 2009

OREGON PARTNERSHIP SUPPORTS LONG OVERDUE INCREASE IN MINUSCULE BEER TAX

Oregon Partnership, a non-profit group dedicated to combating alcohol and drug abuse, has thrown its support behind an increase in the Oregon beer tax, which hasn’t been raised in 32 years.

“Now is the time,” says Kaleen Deatherage, Vice President of Oregon Partnership, who will be testifying this morning before a hearing of the Oregon House Revenue Committee in Salem.

The measure sponsored by Rep. Ben Cannon (D-Portland) would increase the less-than-a-penny tax on a 12-ounce can or bottle of beer to 15 cents.

The increase would raise approximately $320 million in the next two years to be used for alcohol prevention, treatment and recovery services as well as about $100-million for the general fund.

“All told, substance abuse costs Oregon taxpayers $5.93 billion – that’s BILLION – in 2006,” says Deatherage. “Because of this, we have less to invest in critical areas like education, healthcare, and infrastructure.”

Deatherage asks why one of the smallest beer taxes in the nation has remained so sacred, and hasn’t been raised since 1977.

Oregon Partnership maintains it is realistic and efficient to fund prevention and addiction services with revenues from the sale of the product that creates the problem. And jobs will be created in those areas.

Evidence at other states shows that an increase in the beer tax would not change the overall amount of beer consumed, except for two groups – price-sensitive adolescents and teens and heavy drinkers. There is no evidence that jobs will be lost among local brewers.

“Heavy drinkers created the greatest social and economic costs of alcohol abuse – a price now shouldered by every taxpayer in our state,” says Deatherage. “An increase in the cost recovery fee on beer would decrease that price.”

OUR COMMENT – Hear hear.

On Tuesday, March 31 2009 at 6 PM the hour-long BBC documentary video “Hearing Voices” will be screened at the Multnomah County Central Library in Portland, at 801 S.W. 10th Avenue.

The 1995 documentary interviews a number of voice hearers and presents many different points of view on this little-understood phenomenon. The video will be followed by a community discussion.

Tuesday, March 31 2009 6:00 – 7:45 PM
Multnomah County Central Library – public meeting room
801 S.W. 10th Avenue @ Yamhill

A small percentage of people hear voices no one else hears and have other unusual sensory experiences. Sometimes these voices and sensations can be painful and terrifying, but sometimes they are creative and even spiritual. Throughout history the mysterious meaning of hearing voices has defied any final explanation.

What is it like to hear voices and have unusual sensory experiences? How do people learn to live with their voices? Are voices always part of pathology and disorder, or are they related to sensitivity and creativity or have other meaning? How are Hearing Voices Groups in England and Europe providing ways for voice-hearers to gain greater control of their lives?

This event is sponsored by Portland Hearing Voices, a new community learning partnership dedicated to education around hearing voices, unusual sensory experiences, and mental diversity. The discussion will be led by Will Hall, a voice hearer diagnosed with schizophrenia and the program director of Portland Hearing Voices.

This event is free and open to the public, on public transit, and wheelchair accessible. Because of chemical sensitivities, please do not wear scented body products.

For information, contact Jess Jinkies, Outreach Director for Portland Hearing Voices
portlandhearingvoices@gmail.com or at 413-210-2803

ALIEN BOY is a documentary film by Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, and produced by the Mental Health Association of Portland. The film is about the life and death of James Chasse.

Visit our ALIEN BOY web site and make a donation to help finish this community-based film project.

Opinion editorial by Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland; mitchgreenlick@msn.com

Friday night I opened a very thoughtful e-mail on the condition of education funding and asking for increased funding for K-12 education.

It was late in the evening and I found myself responding much more fully than I usually do at that time of night after a difficult week. After writing that e-mail response I decided I would share it more widely through this message. I wrote:

“I certainly agree with you. The problem is that the citizens of Oregon (including the citizens of our rich district) have refused to vote sufficient funds to keep services in our state at a reasonable level. When measure 5 passed (the 1.5% property tax limitation) the funding of schools was passed to the state, without providing any source of funding to pay for those schools. After that the citizens passed measure 11 (minimum sentences for crimes) which doubled our prison budget. We now spend more on prisons than we spend on higher education.

Oregon ranks 45th in the country on per capita local and state taxes, largely because most states have a property tax, an income tax, and a sales tax, shared among the local areas and the state. We have only two of those sources. And each time we vote to increase taxes, even on a temporary basis, the measure is referred to the voters and rejected. If I remember correctly the last time we proposed a modest sales tax it was rejected 80-20.

Currently we spend 92% of the budget on three things; education, public safety (including prisons), and services for the aged, poor, and disabled. We are now faced with a significant budget shortage. Our biennial budget (general funds and lottery funds) is about $17 billion. The severe economic downturn has caused major downward revisions in revenue estimates. (Remember when the revenue exceeds the forecast we send the money back to taxpayers in the kicker, rather than being able to save the surplus for a time like this.) We are told we need to cut about $800 million out of the remainder of this biennium’s budget. That is the five months left of the 24 month budget period. And we are told we need to reduce next biennium’s budget by at least $2.5 billion. We hope the federal stimulus package will provide some relief, but that is not certain.

Assuming the budget is about $4 billion for each six month period, we need to cut $800 million out of that last $4 billion. Imagine if education is excluded from these cuts and we can’t shut down the prisons because of measure 11 and for other reasons. To balance the budget we would probably need to stop providing medical care under the Medicaid program (removing a couple of billion of federal dollars from Oregon), stop providing care for people in nursing homes, stop providing foster care, and other impossible things. And most of this we could not do even if we wanted to do so. Consequently schools are going to take their share of the hit. And we could do that same exercise for the 2009-2011 budget, which looks even bleaker.

Every day I visit with constituents who have very important messages to give me. “Don’t cut funding to Head Start.” “Don’t reduce services to frail elderly.” “Fully fund mental health services.” “Increase mandatory sentences for sex offenders.” “Provide free tuition at our universities for returning veterans.” “Provide more support for poor college students.” “Increase requirements for high school graduation.” And on and on and on. And then over and over, “don’t increase our tax burden during a recession” or “you can’t tax your way out of a recession.”

We are going to balance our budget, as our constitution requires us to do. And we are going to do it in a way that doesn’t destroy the state. And perhaps we will even look for a way to increase revenue. But we are going to need to have our constituents behind us. And we are all going to have to find ways to mitigate the destruction to our families during this most difficult time.”

This update is provided by Disability Rights Oregon for February 13 2009

Oregon State Hospital Advisory Board Bill Stumbles

On Tuesday, the Senate Health Care and Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 25. This bill would create an advisory board for Oregon State Hospital. The original bill called for a board made up of advocates, health care professionals, consumers, community members and a family member.

At the hearing, the bill was amended to remove an advocate, a health care professional, and a community member and replace them with representatives of Oregon State Hospital doctors, nurses and line staff. Consumers and advocates were disappointed that the board seemed to change from an external oversight body to one with representatives of special interest groups.

Although Senate Bill 25 was passed by the committee in amended form, it must return for another hearing because it will cost money to implement. Advocates hope to have another chance to make their case for the board to have greater independence.

House Committee Hears General Assistance Bill

On Wednesday, the House Human Services Committee held its first hearing on House Bill 2051. This bill would restore the General Assistance Program that was defunded in the wake of 2003 budget cuts.

The General Assistance Program would support Oregon residents who have disabilities and are pursuing Supplemental Security Income or Social Security
Disability benefits by providing monthly cash assistance, medical assistance and case management services. The program would begin January 1, 2010.

Many witnesses provided stark testimony about individuals with disabilities who are unable to work and who have no money for food, shelter or health care while they wait for months and years for the cumbersome Social Security Administration to process their applications.

Committee members acknowledged the severe needs of this population but also the difficult challenges to enacting House Bill 2051 due to budget constraints.

Ways and Means Committee Hears Impact of Cuts on Human Services

On Tuesday, advocates for human services describes the impact of budget cuts on services for children and families, seniors and people with disabilities, those with mental health and addictions needs, individuals with developmental disabilities and those who depend on the state for health insurance. Committee Co-Chair Margaret Carter said that decisions about which programs and individuals would be cut had not yet been made. She thanked the witnesses for describing the real life value of human services and the impact of cutting them.

Mental Health Caucus Holds Second Meeting

Representative Ron Maurer convened Thursday’s meeting of the Mental Health Caucus. The featured speaker was John Mullin from the Oregon Law Center. John explained that his organization provides civil legal services to poor Oregonians and advocates on their behalf at the Capitol. Also speaking was Jim Russell from the Mid-Valley Behavioral Care Network. Jim provided information underscoring the need to integrate health services with mental health services. He noted that people with serious mental illness die, on average, 25 years sooner than the general population.

The next Mental Health Caucus meeting is on February 26 at noon in Room 343 at the Capitol. You can also participate by phone: 503 378-3313.

Capitol information and bill schedules can be found at www.leg.state.or.us

From the Oregonian, February 15 2009

The widow of a mentally distressed man who fell to his death from the roof of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center after seeking help there is suing doctors for $4.5 million.

The suit claims that emergency room doctors who saw Jon Jacobsen on Feb. 5 and 6, 2007, failed to give him medication or keep him in a secure room even though he’d had seizures that led him to talk about killing himself.

“Mr. Jacobsen served his country as a veteran, and when he needed us, we weren’t there,” said attorney Richard Rogers, who filed the suit earlier this month in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Jacobsen, 50 and a father of two young boys, served in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 1979 in the 2nd Infantry Division and in the 2nd Armored Division in Korea as a helicopter crew chief. He had a long-standing seizure disorder and psychosis, stemming from his service to his country, Rogers said.

The suit names as defendants four doctors and Oregon Health & Science University, because although Jacobsen was admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, doctors work at both hospitals and paperwork listed OHSU, Rogers said.

A spokesman for OHSU declined to comment on the suit because it’s pending litigation. According to Rogers and the suit:

On Feb. 3, 2007, Jacobsen’s wife, Lynette Jacobsen, brought him to Portland Adventist Medical Center where he was given medication, put in a secure room, observed overnight and released the next day when he was feeling better.

But at about 5 p.m. on Feb. 5, 2007, he was again delusional and Jacobsen’s wife brought him to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland after calling a doctor there. Emergency room doctors saw him but didn’t give him medication and placed him on an unlocked neurology floor.

“He immediately began trying to leave the unit,” Rogers said. He also asked staff to kill him, according to the suit.

Doctors put a mental-health hold on Jacobsen, but still did not lock him up. At about 6 a.m., he was found standing on the edge of the roof. A Portland police officer spent an hour trying to talk him down — a scene caught on surveillance video.

“It’s an awful video to watch,” said Rogers, stating that Jacobsen can be seen repeatedly looking at the officer, then looking away.

“All of a sudden, he falls off the roof,” Rogers said.

From OPB.org, February 13 2009

Like their colleagues across the country, legislators in Oregon are examining every nook and cranny of the current year’s budget. They have to figure out how to fill what could be an $800 million gap in cash.

But some state agencies and social service advocates are warning lawmakers to avoid being pennywise and pound foolish.

Nothing packs a hearing room like possible budget cuts. As lawmakers prepared to get an earful from people worried about rollbacks to state programs, Democratic Senator Margaret Carter assured the audience that nothing was set in stone.

Senator Margaret Carter: “I know that there are those who would think that we’ve already made the decisions, but I want you to know: No, we have not.”

But they will have to make those decisions soon.

Lawmakers have to balance the budget for the fiscal year that ends in June. An $800 million hole effectively translates into a 20 percent over the next four months.

Some of those cuts are easy: delay hiring for a vacant position, or put a freeze on out-of-town travel. But those aren’t the kinds of cuts that brought out a laundry list of lobbyists and activists.

Senator Carter called them up to the witness stand five at a time.

Senator Margaret Carter: “Jim Elvin, Joanne Fuller, David Hidalgo, Chris Bouneff, Krichita White.”

Many of those who testified warned lawmakers that the unkindest cut of all may be the kind which ends up costing more money in the long run.

Here’s an example. One suggestion from the Department of Human Services is a 13 percent reduction to community based mental health treatment.

700 people would be turned out on the street. And Chris Bouneff, the director of the mental health advocacy group NAMI Oregon, told lawmakers the $4.1 million theyd save now would be more than eclipsed by increased costs elsewhere.

Chris Bouneff: “Those 700 people who are out in our community receiving lower cost treatment will end in our prisons. They’ll end up in our jails. They will end up in our emergency rooms. And it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. And the answer to that question is soon.”

The argument that making a cut now will cost more later isn’t limited to huge budget items.

Take the case of the Psychiatric Security Review Board. Its job is to decide whether patients can be released from the Oregon State Hospital.

Because it’s so small, the agency only had to come up with $50,000 worth of cuts. Nearly half of that would come from laying off one administrative assistant. But apparently that administrative assistant has some important duties.

Officials claim getting rid of the position would set off a chain of events that would wreak havoc, jeopardize public safety, and end up with the state getting sued.

That’s because the Review Board would be unable to hold enough hearings to meet its obligations under state law.

Bob Joondeph of Disability Rights Oregon says the Review Board is right to sound the alarm.

Bob Joondeph: “They’ve made an assessment that they have a legal obligation, and they’re afraid that if they don’t fulfill their legal obligation that there will be a legal action. And you know, I think that’s a responsible thing to tell the Legislature.”

Another proposed cut doesn’t risk a lawsuit but it could mean liquor sales would drop.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission says it will have to trim hours at state-contracted liquor stores. That could drive away customers which would hurt the bottom line.

So that brings us back to Senator Margaret Carter, co-chair of the Ways and Means Committee. The Portland Democrat says she knows that in some cases, cutting now would cost more in the long run. But she says the Legislature’s hands are tied.

Margaret Carter: “We have a Constitutional requirement to balance the budget. And so you either have the money in the state or you don’t. And if you don’t, you have to do cuts. And those are the only choices that we have.”

The final choices on where to cut won’t come until later this month. But the work won’t be done then. Lawmakers will have just as many tough choices when they get started on the next two-year budget.

Editorial from the Oregonian, September 3 2008

It was, Sen. Peter Courtney said Wednesday, “the room of lost souls,” the cremains of more than 3,500 people stacked in dented copper cans in an outbuilding, that galvanized Oregon to finally move to replace the decrepit Oregon State Hospital and improve the state’s system of mental health.
Courtney was the featured speaker Wednesday at the ground-breaking ceremony at the state hospital grounds in Salem. It was an historic moment for Oregon — the first time in more than 130 years that the state has broken ground on a major new mental hospital.

This day was long, long overdue. What follows is an editorial I wrote after watching the ground-breaking ceremony on Wednesday. I welcome anyone to share stories about the Oregon State Hospital, or thoughts about its replacement.

A new beginning for the mentally ill

Hundreds of people, some wiping away tears, saw something Wednesday that had happened only once before in all of Oregon history.

This state broke ground on a new mental hospital in Salem.

This state has built a lot of schools, highways and offices over the decades. It’s built more than a dozen prisons. But it’s been more than 130 years since Oregon built a major new mental hospital.

So it is worth celebrating the ground-breaking event that state human services leaders staged Wednesday in the brilliant morning sunlight on the grounds of the state hospital. For those who have struggled with mental illness, this was a long, long time coming.

In fact, there was good cause to doubt whether this day, this strong new commitment to the mentally ill, would ever come in Oregon. This state has kept cramming patients into one of the nation’s oldest, most decrepit state hospitals — a fright house on a major street less than a mile from the state Capitol. Every governor, every legislator knew it was there and knew, or should have known, how awful it was. For a long, long time they were all too willing to look the other way.

In the end, it was Senate President Peter Courtney, a Salem Democrat, who made us all stop and look at what Oregon persisted in calling a hospital. It was Courtney who flung open the doors to this horrific place, who showed us the room filled wall to wall with copper containers filled with the cremains of thousands of forgotten patients. It was Courtney, working with Gov. Ted Kulongoski and dozens of other legislators, who pushed hardest for measures to help the mentally ill and their families, including insurance parity.

Yesterday was a remarkable scene, arguably the most exciting moment for the mentally ill in the history of Oregon. With the soon-to-be-demolished hospital in the backdrop, several patients donned helmets and grabbed gold-painted shovels and stood shoulder to shoulder with the governor and Senate president, breaking ground for the first of two new hospitals costing more than $450 million.

Oregon now has enlightened leadership on mental health issues. Yet in every way, state leaders on Wednesday were digging in the soft dirt. It gets harder from here on. While Oregon builds the two new hospitals, the Legislature must fund and communities must accept scores of small new community facilities for the mentally ill.

If they don’t, Oregon’s new hospitals — and all the hopes for a modern, compassionate system of mental health in this state — will be overwhelmed on the day they open.

OUR COMMENT – The editorial expresses a stunningly lack of understanding about mental illness, it’s treatment, about the interests of persons with mental illness. It accepts as fact a shell game played on Oregonians – that new buildings bring health and welfare to persons with mental illness. They do not. Great psychiatric care can be provided in a wigwam. The building is immaterial.

Yes the buildings are old, decrepit, and they have been maintained that way by the same legislators the Oregonian editor applauds for now finding money for new construction in their political districts.

Here’s what’s happened. The state hospital has not responded to the devastating critiques put forth in a Department of Justice report distributed in January. The hospital is still troubled by recruiting or retaining good staff, and unable to get rid of bad staff. Medical directors come and go, The state legislature cut funding for mental health treatment increasing the number of people involuntarily incarcerated at the hospital, and counties statewide have followed suit.

From the Salem Statesman Journal, February 13 2009

Six remodeled cottages will house people nearing release

Six newly remodeled cottages on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital in central Salem are ready to open as transitional homes for 36 patients on track to leave the psychiatric facility.

Hospital officials led patients, staff members, legislators, neighbors and other visitors through one refurbished cottage Thursday during a daylong series of tours.

The century-old home, freshly painted and furnished with oak tables, desks and other items made by inmates, is set to become a transitional home for eight male patients before the end of the month.

Hospital patient Joe Powers said he was eager to move in. He contrasted the spacious two-story 2,100-square-foot home to his current treatment ward in the hospital’s run-down J Building.

“I’m impressed. I think it’s going to be a good step up,” he said. “It has more of a residential feel to it. We don’t see razor wire outside our windows.”

As officials tell it, all six cottages will be occupied by model mental patients who pose minimal risk to the safety of fellow residents, themselves, staff members, neighbors and the rest of the community.

All reportedly have progressed well in treatment programs and are close to being discharged.

“A lot of these folks have been waiting a long time,” said Patricia Feeny, state hospital communications manager. “This is what they’ve been working for; this is their time. They deserve to be in this remarkable setting.”

The six remodeled cottages are among more than two dozen cottages scattered across the south and southwest section of the hospital’s sprawling 144-acre campus. In a bygone era, hospital administrators and other high-ranking employees lived in some of the stately homes.

Patients selected to move into the six cottages will include civilly committed patients transferred from the state hospital campus in Portland, as well as criminally committed patients now housed on treatment wards in the hospital’s crowded forensic program in Salem.

Staff members will be on duty around the clock in the cottages, officials said. The units are equipped with alarm systems to alert employees to unauthorized patient departures.

A previous critic of the hospital’s push to convert cottages into transitional homes said Thursday that his concerns had been eased by new talks with a top hospital administrator.

“There seems to be a willingness to commit to some of our requests,” said Andries Fourie, a sculptor who teaches art at Willamette University. “I’m much more optimistic because in the past, they had not wanted to commit to anything.”

Among other things, Fourie, who lives across the street from the cottages, has called for hospital officials to conduct annual independent security audits of the transitional program, to provide assurances that start-up staffing levels for the cottages will be maintained and to promise neighbors that additional cottages won’t be converted into transitional homes.

After a Thursday meeting with Maynard Hammer, deputy hospital superintendent, Fourie said he was confident that officials will heed at least some of his requests.

Fourie said he asked for, but received no assurance, that the hospital would refrain from placing patients with histories of violent crimes, including sex offenses, in the transitional cottages.

“They said they really can’t commit to that, and that we’ll have to live with it,” he said.

This month’s opening of the 36-bed transitional program comes as the state is moving forward with plans to build a new $280 million psychiatric hospital.

The hospital has been deemed obsolete and unsafe by state-hired consultants and federal investigators.

Cost for remodeling work on the six cottages was not available Thursday, officials said. They said it was included in the $458 million budgeted for construction of two new psychiatric facilities. In addition to a new 620-bed hospital in Salem, plans call for building a 360-bed hospital in Junction City.

A little more than a year has passed since State and County officials began to worry about the state of affairs with Oregon’s largest private provider of mental health services – Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare.

After a series of newspaper articles which questioned the financial state of the nonprofit after a Medicaid audit were met with reassurances of stability, Leslie Ford, then CEO, President and founder of Cascadia abruptly resigned in April. She was followed by all of her longtime senior staff members. Finding a substantial and unpredicted shortfall in revenue left behind, the Cascadia appealed for assistance from Multnomah County. Their appeal resulted in several infusions of cash, and county officials insisting Cascadia do it’s business differently.

Clients of Cascadia were in real jeopardy for a short duration of time. Without intervention from the county and state, vital and irreplaceable services could have vanished. Big changes have occurred, administrative, financial, clinical.

The Mental Health Association of Portland has asked Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare to answer some basic questions about changes at Cascadia, general and specific. They’ve agreed, and over the next few weeks we’ll post this virtual dialogue on this web site.

You’re welcome to join in and both ask your own questions and comment on the answers given by leaving a comment below. Send your questions to info@mentalhealthportland.org.

Question for Derald Walker, Ph.d, CEO and President of Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare.

Can you tell us what Cascadia is today, and give us a basic understanding of how Cascadia transformed over the past year?

Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare is much more financially stable. The changes that have led to a more stable organization are due to a variety of cost cutting moves that included painful but necessary staff reductions. The large majority of the staff reductions were administrative in nature. Cascadia continues to focus on eliminating costs where possible without impacting consumer services. We’ve completed the implementation of our new automated billing system as well as a fully integrated accounting software program. The combination of cost reductions and improved revenue and accounting systems have helped significantly.

Cascadia no longer operates clinics in Gresham and Downtown Portland. The contracts in these two locations and in Washington County were transferred to other community providers. In addition to these changes, Cascadia’s Bridgeview program was also transferred.

While these changes have reduced Cascadia’s scope, we continue to provide an impressive continuum of services that comprises a valuable system of care for our community. Some of these services are residential, community clinic services, mobile crisis outreach, integrated services between addiction and mental health as well as specialty affordable housing services.

Given the uncertainly with publicly funded healthcare, Cascadia’s financial future will continue to provide challenges. However, with the improved internal information systems that include claims, clinical productivity, and financial accounting, our ability to anticipate and adjust in ways that will protect consumer care is greatly enhanced.

EXTRA – Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare

From the Oregonian, February 8 2009

Barbara Thayer tucks a list into her teenage son’s pocket whenever he leaves their Albany home, listing his name, her phone number, some personal information and the simple fact that her son deals with bipolar disorder.

It’s a just-in-case sort of thing — just in case the 17-year-old were to get in trouble with the law.

‘‘My worry is that if he’s not stable that he could be — ‘‘ Thayer stops herself. There have been plenty of headlines in Oregon in recent years about mentally ill people killed in confrontations with police that make Thayer worry what could happen to her son.

‘‘I said, ‘Zac, promise me you will put this in your pocket and you will keep this in your pocket, so they will understand that you’re not on drugs,’” Thayer said. In 2006, James Chasse Jr. was wrestled to the ground when Portland police mistakenly thought the 42-year-old schizophrenic was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Chasse passed in and out of consciousness as police took him to jail and then to the hospital. He died later that night.

Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Andy Olson, an Albany Republican, seeks to give people like Thayer a little peace of mind. His bill would require the Oregon State Police to create a voluntary mental health database that would help law enforcement officials work with those who have mental illness.

As the legislation is written, individuals would have to give written consent to be included in the database, and officers would have to go through an hour of training to learn how to use it.

Olson, who was once a state trooper himself, calls the database ‘‘a fairly simple solution to a pretty big issue.’’

‘‘I understand now, it would have been very handy to have this information available to me’’ when he was a trooper, he said.

Oregon State Police, for the record, are neutral on the proposal, though a spokesman did point out that funding for the bill is not included in the governor’s budget.

Olson has been an advocate for this sort of database for a few years now. He tried to pass similar legislation back in 2007, but the bill failed.

No matter. During the interim, Olson set up his own task force. He was ready with a new bill when the 2009 Legislature convened.

‘‘I would really like to see this one go through,’’ he said.

Others, however, aren’t so eager.

Meghan Caughey, the vice president of Mental Health America of Oregon, praises Olson when she talks about the proposed bill. ‘‘I really believe that Rep. Olson is a very compassionate person,’’ she said. ‘‘I think his intentions are very noble and good.’’

But the legislation itself troubles her. ‘‘I do have some very serious issues with this bill,’’ Caughey said.

She’s worried it will perpetuate discrimination against the mentally ill, and that people could be coerced into signing up.

‘‘I know what it’s like to be in trouble, be in crisis,’’ she said. ‘‘I know what it’s like to know prejudice and discrimination.’’

At age 19, Caughey, who is now 53, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She’s been hospitalized more than 100 times, gone through shock treatments, four-point physical restraints, seclusion rooms — the list goes on. ‘‘That gives you an idea of the severity of the disabilities I’ve had.’’

Caughey’s been in recovery for 10 years now — ‘‘my life is a testimony that people can recover’’ — but she hasn’t forgotten what it’s like.

‘‘I think this bill would continue to separate us out and make us apart from the general population,’’ she said.

Instead, Caughey recommends a completely different approach. She would like to pair law enforcement officials with peer specialists who could help them work with the mentally ill. Those partnerships, she said, would lead to soft interventions. ‘‘I think it’s a more humane, more human solution.’’

Chris Bouneff, the executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness Oregon, shares some of Caughey’s concerns. But he’s more hopeful that, with some work, the database could work.

‘‘We’re willing to sit down and fine tune this,’’ Bouneff said. ‘‘The more successful we can make those interactions, the better off law enforcement will be and the better off those individuals will be.’’

One of the first amendments — Olson himself supports it — is a broadening of the bill to include people with other conditions including dementia, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and epilepsy.

Like Caughey, Bouneff wants additional safeguards put in place to ensure the information can’t be used inappropriately and that when people sign up they are doing so under their own free will. ‘‘There’s a fine line, particularly if you’re somebody with significant mental illness, between voluntary and coercion,’’ he said.

Thayer, for her part, hopes that line can be laid out and that the bill will eventually become law.

‘‘My son knows that I have his best interest in heart and mind,’’ she said. ‘‘He wants me to be able to help him during those times. And I can’t help him if they take him to jail.

‘‘What would that law do for me? I could sleep at a night.’’

OUR COMMENT – This is a clever and terrible idea is grown within the vacuum of vision and leadership by persons desperate for a solution to a chronic problem. Beside the impossibility of managing even voluntary medical information within federal constraints, the disparity and discrimination of implementation, the departments and bureaus using such a database would need to either agree to a degree of liability for use of the information, or use it on a voluntary basis – which means it’s just a pretend fix, which is more dangerous than nothing at all.

Using the name of James Chasse by this reporter to promote this clever and terrible idea is misleading. First, we doubt James would ever agree to be involved with this sort of authoritarian intervention, and second, it’s clear from evidence the officers didn’t check their own SWIS database prior to targeting James and beating him to death.

From the Eugene Register-Guard, February 7 2009

From being diagnosed to undergoing treatment, an ex-prisoner relates the challenges of mental illness

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a first-person account of life inside the Oregon corrections system, as told by a mentally ill former inmate who was incarcerated from 2000 to 2004. The ex-inmate, whose first name is John, requested that his last name be withheld, citing concerns about the stigma associated with being an ex-convict who has returned to society. The edited comments below are excerpted from a longer interview with Register-Guard reporter David Steves.

****

When I first got to prison, there was lot of suspicion. I’m a white guy and I go in at age 44.

I was asked why I was there and told there are only two possibilities. Either you’re here for a sex offense, or you’re here because you’ve got anger issues.

I said, “Well here. Here’s the deal. Second-degree kidnapping,” and gave them a little bit of the story, how my ex had come for a 10-day stay and all we did was drink and argue until I had had enough.

I had a guy lean back in his chair and go, “Oh, man. Everybody understands hittin’ your (woman). You shouldn’t even be here.”

I said, “Well, that’s not really what happened. Actually I was trying to commit suicide and…”

And then I realize it’s probably better that I just leave the explanation as a domestic dispute; Then it’s just anger. And then I just blend into the background.

****

I was arrested and convicted in Washington County. I spent 10 months prior to trial in the Washington County jail and then, after the conviction, spent three weeks at what was then the intake facility for the correctional system in Clackamas County.

Everyone goes through an evaluation by the psychiatrist. It’s fairly cursory and, to my knowledge, whoever is working in the prison setting has no knowledge of your history.

I suffer from panic disorder, pretty severe depression, anxiety, some mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. I’m technically dually diagnosed. I suffer from both mental health issues and alcoholism.

So they’re making diagnoses on the spot and they’re prescribing medications. They’re making decisions about whether you can function in the general population, whether you need to be in a segregated unit within the prison system, or whether you need to be sent off to the state mental hospital. I was shipped off to Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.

****

There was a medication line three times a day: morning, noon and night time. They were long lines. They were called by unit. The first unit I was on had 15 men and I would say that 20 percent of those people went to the medication line each night.

You’ve got a lot of guys who aren’t taking their medications the way they should. For people who suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, those kinds of things, the doctors may be part of the conspiracy in their head. So they’re going to not want to take these medications.

Some people hoard their medication so they can get high. And some guys sell it. They make some self-evaluation: “Well, I can cut this dose in half, or I can take it every other day or every third day.”

Because of all this, you’ve got problems with guys who aren’t managing their situations.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been around someone who’s had a psychotic episode, but everything can seem just fine. You’re sitting around a group of 50 men watching TV and all of a sudden somebody just pops up and is convinced that the guy next to them is out to get them. And things jump off from there, just going crazy.

****

The last year I was on a mental health unit. I believe what led me there was both a moderate mental health diagnosis — that is to say, the guy really does have mental health issues that need to be treated. But No. 2, that he demonstrated that he is willing to try to participate in his own treatment: go to classes, do group work, those kinds of things.

When they actually moved me onto the mental health unit, I was very upset. I was very, very upset because I had privileges taken away.

I no longer had as much time in the exercise yard. I had to eat dinner segregated from the rest of the population. I was a tutor in the education department. I lost that job for about two weeks and then they allowed me to go out and continue to do that job.

When you’re segregated into a mental health unit, the other inmates treat you differently. You’re a target that can be exploited, which is one of the reasons you’re in segregation. It’s extortion issues, mainly. A typical form of extortion would be them wanting you to buy them something — some food or something on an ongoing basis — from the canteen. Or sometimes, you’re just a target for fun, for sport. If you can be screwed around with, they’re going to screw around with you.

****

Until I went on the mental health unit, I hadn’t done any work on myself from a mental health point of view. Without being in a segregated setting, I don’t think I would be stable today. It took awhile to get turned around. It took a lot of work on the part of some good counselors to help me get turned around and to begin to look at this as an opportunity to address an issue I had not yet addressed.

Just because people have mental illness doesn’t meant that you don’t ask them to respect boundaries and to respect the rules of society. That, in part, is how they learn where the boundaries are. Otherwise they’ll never learn. And that’s a hard process to go through. No matter how I feel inside, it’s not OK to harm somebody. It’s not OK to act out in a certain way.

****

I was working part-time on a dissertation at Portland State when I was incarcerated. And when I came out, I went to see my advisor. He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I want to finish. So he let me back in and I’m working on that now, so that’s consuming my time.

I work for a city in Colorado now, doing economic development work. On Friday, my boss called me in and told me the city manager’s office had received an anonymous phone call from a woman, asking how could they hire a convicted felon, much less someone with mental health problems and of my background.

So it is still something that comes up from time to time in a very real way in my life. It is not an issue of being incarcerated and then you’re done. It’s something that follows you around.