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Mental Health: McDonnell’s Small Gesture

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Peter Galuszka
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virginia-tech-shooting-police-norris-halljpg-9159f659b05b0b6e_largeBy 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.

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8 responses to “Mental Health: McDonnell’s Small Gesture”

  1. Breckinridge Avatar
    Breckinridge

    My cheap shot alarm is going off on this one, Peter. The press release is barely dry (do they still use ink for anything?) and your attack begins. Is more money the answer? Have we established that there really was not a bed for this troubled young man, or it is possible it was just a lazy intake officer who didn’t try that hard? We really don’t know what happened in that case, do we? Maybe the family thought they could handle him?

    The problem is not money, not totally. The problem is the very serious one of balancing the rights of the individual, who may or may not be a danger to anyone, against the rights of society to be protected from deranged armed lunatics.

    That was a major discussion following the Virginia Tech shooting, and is unfortunately the pattern we’ve seen in the others — crazy people who clearly were a threat and clearly were arming themselves, but nobody intervened successfully. And people knew. Which probably ignores all the times that the system has worked and people do get locked up and medicated against their will. We never hear about those.

    I suspect there is an element of “we must DO something” in this latest round of proposals but I give all concerned credit for actually wanting to do the best they can with the resources available. Everybody looks at the Deeds family and recognizes that it could have been and someday might be their family.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      The question is .. and this is a serious question – Did McDOnnell take actions to truly look into how Va does Mental Health and expect a list of options back for his successor to take the ball and run with?

      or is what McDonnell is doing – fundamentally political?

      I’ll give him a little running room here because as Breckinridge has pointed out.. this is not an easy issue.

      Anyone who has ever been close to a situation where a family member or a friend have had to get “help”, everybody and their dog knows, that in terms of harmful downstream impacts to things like a career – are just shy of having a prison record.

      It’s unfortunate but true – if you end up with documented mental issues, your goose is on it’s way to being cooked…and even those who are mentally ill know this .. and if you try to have them committed – they WILL get mad.

      It might be easy to think some guy down the street needs to be put away but when it’s your son or daughter or wife.. it’s a very tough deal and truth be known, many a family member would never commit their own unless they feared for others.. and even then…

      …. look at the Mother of the Sandy Hook killer.. She KNEW he was ill and what did she do?

      these are not easy issues…. and politicians are not going to go much further than they have public support for…

      IMHO of course.

  2. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Breckenridge,

    Puh-lease. McDonnell has done very little on mental health and is trying to cash in now. Sure it’s complicated, as you say, but I haven’t seen a hell of a lot of progress in funding or efficiency.

  3. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    To be fair, McDonnell was elected in 2009 at the height of the so-called Great Recession. It’s hard to imagine how he would have “found money” for anything during those times. In fact, he had to defer making payments into the VRS pension fund to maintain the illusion of a balanced budget.

    Now, things are a bit better economically and he’s loosening the purse strings on mental health.

    I am not sure what else / more he could have realistically done.

    One day I’d like to see a tally of all the ideas for change proposed by progressives – expand Medicaid, pay teachers the national average, more mental health services, rehabilitate old schools, etc. How much would these programs cost and how would Virginia’s tax system have to be changed to accommodate these programs?

    Right now, people like Terry McAuliffe campaign on these highfalutin ideas without so much as a word on how to pay for them. Meanwhile, Cuccinelli campaigns on a “no spending beyond inflation and population growth increases” approach without so much as a word on how he’d move Virginia forward in any area.

    One possibility that Cuccinelli sort of endorsed was eliminating corporate tax breaks. Chap Petersen had the same idea. Maybe end some of Virginia’s more egregious corporate welfare and use the proceeds on things like improved mental health services.

    Of course that idea dies in the great graveyard of good ideas – the Virginia General Assembly.

  4. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    I strongly sense in Robert F. McDonnell a deep, indeed profound, streak of decency. This action follows the otherwise inexplicable spirit of his prisoner second chance initiatives (the latter likely done at political cost), but done nevertheless simply because it the right and humane thing to do.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      jesus. “decency” does not get you in trouble with gift laws and the FBI snooping around… sorry.

      If he is “decent” then it’s hard to believe that the advisors he depends on did not tell him what Maureen was up to. This has the plausible deniability stink to it. decent, maybe… profound? ummm…

  5. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Reed,
    If so, why didn’t he do this decent stuff much earlier in his term?

    1. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      Actually Peter, that question you ask led me to make the suggestion I did. Policy very often doesn’t equal virtue. Random kindness often does.

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