By Peter Galuszka
It seems so little so late.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, apparently trying to get some 11th hour positive spin, has announced that he wants to put $38.3 million over two years to improve the state’s mental health system. He also wants to expand the amount of time an individual can be held for initial psychiatric evaluation.
While any money for Virginia’s sagging mental health system is welcome, McDonnell’s beau geste is suspect, coming just three weeks after a tragedy in which state Sen. Creigh Deeds was seriously wounded by his son who killed himself after a psychiatric bed wasn’t found for him.
McDonnell has never had a history of providing much support for the mentally ill and, in fact, last year, suggested cutting $1.5 million in support. Incredibly, this was about the time of the mass shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last December.
This time, McDonnell says that his budget recommendation isn’t directly related to the Deeds affair, but comes after the state studied the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012.
In other words, it has taken McDonnell an entire year to study the Connecticut bloodletting and come up with recommendation. Sounds like a truly strong personal priority.
Moreover, the $38.3 million does not represent any new ground being broken at least in terms of mental health spending.
In fact, it merely takes Virginia back to the post Virginia Tech days. After a disturbed student methodically shot and killed 32 students and teachers and then himself in 2007, the state boosted mental health funding by $42 million. But about $37 million of that flittered away when tax revenues dropped in 2009 and 2010 because of the recession.
In other words, McDonnell is merely taking us back to where we were about three years ago.
Now that’s enlightened leadership.
