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Highlands Today

County Legislative Delegation Hears Requests

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: January 22, 2009

SEBRING - The pain from state budget cuts was apparent Wednesday morning as Highlands County's three state legislators spent nearly three hours listening to requests from local officials and social service agencies at the annual legislative delegation meeting in the county commission chambers.

The requests ranged from improving the reporting system for suspected elder abuse cases to better monitoring of prescriptions to combat drug abuse to eliminating further cuts for mental health and social services.

"The system is at a breaking point" due to state funding cuts, said Rhonda Beckman, executive director of Ridge Area Arc. The agency, serving developmentally disabled people, won't be able to meet its clients' needs for basic health and safety if there are further cuts, she said.

State Representatives Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid, and Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven, and Larry Ford, representing state Sen. J.D. Alexander (R-Winter Haven), heard repeated pleas to end all unfunded mandates.

Barbara Stewart, chairwoman of the Highlands County commissioners; Wally Cox, superintendent of Highlands County Schools; and Avon Park Mayor Sharon Schuler all said that unfunded mandates continue to hurt local government, especially in these tough economic times.

"It's not that they're bad ideas or bad legislation," Cox said of state programs handed down to the local level without a funding source. "I just think that in these times we need to hold these in abeyance."

Cox also told the legislators that school districts need more flexibility in how various sources of revenue are spent.

"I really believe the local school board is closer to the teachers and closer to the students and have the best ability to make decisions," he said.

Highlands County Sheriff Susan Benton asked the legislators for a statewide electronic data system through which pharmacists, doctors and law enforcement can check on prescriptions.

Benton said access to prescription information would not only help combat drug abuse, but also protect people from dangerous or fatal reactions to taking the wrong combinations of prescribed medicines.

"Prescription drug abuse is a very huge problem," Benton said, adding that some pain clinics have become "mechanisms for drug seekers."

Troutman and Grimsley agreed with a request for a statewide medical records data base made by Gaye Williams, CEO of Central Florida Health Care. Quick access to a patient's medical records "will improve care delivery and quality," she said.

Grimsley, an emergency room nurse, said important medical information is often needed but unavailable for patients in emergency care, especially at night, because their medical histories aren't readily available.

"What you're trying to do is essential," Troutman said.

Benton asked the legislators to maintain mental health funding in the Department of Children and Families, which provides a mental health professional who works with county jail inmates.

Mental health assessments and referrals for treatment are essential to keep many offenders from committing more crimes when they are released, said Dorothy Reed, a registered nurse who works as coordinator of mental health and substance abuse programs in the county jail.

"Without the mental health social worker, without the DCF money (which funds that position), we would have a lot more inmates coming back to jail," Reed said. "And it's making our streets safer."

Mel Williams, program director of the Jail Alternative to Substance Abuse program, said that in two years, only two graduates of JASA in Highlands County have returned to jail. In both cases, he said, no crime was committed but they violated probation by not keeping a job.

Much of the program's success comes from a strong after-care program, in which former prisoners receive support after they are released from jail, he said.

"The problem is that if we continue having budget cuts, our after-care component will cease to exist," Williams said. "For every 1 percent you reduce the budget for mental health and substance abuse, 2,100 people lose treatment."

Tommy Parker, a former county jail prisoner and a JASA graduate, told the legislators that funding to help people kick drug addictions "is pennies on the dollar" compared to the cost to taxpayers of not providing that help.

"You know, God will give you what you need when you need it, and He gave me this program," Parker said. Through JASA, he said, he was able to beat the drug addiction that led him into crime sprees to buy drugs.

Parker said he runs his own small construction company, and proudly calls himself a "citizen," because "for the first time in my life something was available to me to teach me how to conquer my addiction."

With his voice cracking slightly, Parker held up his jail booking photo and told the legislators, "I am not this man today."

Moments later he held up his toddler son, whom he is raising alone.

"There is not a calculator in this building that can put a price on this," he said as he held his little child. "I'm his daddy, I'm his father, I take care of him, and it's only because I got help when I needed it."

Stewart told the legislators the $1.50 charge on license plate renewals that funds the Transportation Disadvantaged program doesn't come close to meeting the needs of disabled and low-income elderly people. She said the county commission backs raising that fee to $3.

"This small increase of $1.50 can meet the unmet needs in the state," she said.

Stewart also asked the legislators to increase the population limit from 100,000 to 110,000 for designation as a rural county, which provides a number of grant programs. Highlands County has climbed to 100,207 year-round population, she said, but still is largely a rural county and needs rural-county programs.

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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