JACKSON - The Senate's proposed budget for the Department of Mental Health would force facilities to close and leave 1,463 employees without jobs, Sen. Billy Thames told his colleagues Wednesday.
The employee layoffs would result in 700 closed beds due to federal staff-to-patient ratios that must be maintained, and more people would be housed in jails as they wait for beds to become available, he said.
Thames, D-Mize, voted for the bill, along with the rest of the Senate, but he urged his fellow lawmakers to find more money before the end of the session to augment the mental health budget.
"I realize we're in round one of this process," Thames said. "You just need to understand we are in a crisis situation."
In the House, lawmakers also debated several budget bills on Wednesday, including one for elementary and secondary public education.
The Senate-approved bills would provide funding at the level recommended by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, a $3.8 billion bare-bones spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The mental health budget for the current year is $536.2 million. The fiscal year 2006 budget approved by the Senate is $471.7 million.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Gordon, D-Okolona, said the Legislature will create a pool of money before the end of the session to bolster many agency budgets. That pool of money could come from the state's 2 percent set aside, oil and gas severance tax revenue and other sources.
The priorities for that funding would be Medicaid, Corrections, debt service and all levels of education, Gordon said.
"Hopefully we can raise the revenue estimate some and alleviate some of the pressures," Gordon said.
It could be weeks before the House and Senate begin negotiating a compromise on the budget bills.
As the House debated a spending proposal for K-12 education, Rep. John Moore, R-Brandon, asked Education Committee Chairman Randy "Bubba" Pierce whether school funding requests will continue to grow steeply, as they have done the past few years.
Pierce, D-Leakesville, said the state is in the final year of a five-year teacher pay raise plan, and the conclusion of the plan should slow down the growth of complicated school funding formulas.
Moore said: "I'd love to see a year when they can walk in here and say what they're getting is enough, instead of demanding every new dollar."
Thames said he hopes lawmakers will fund programs responsibly - a remark that angered Senate President Pro Tempore Travis Little, R-Corinth.
"The responsible thing is to wait and see how much money we have to deal with," Little said.
Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, tried to amend a bill for the university system and one for community colleges to restore funding to the level of the fiscal year that ended last June 30. Both amendments failed.
Bryan said the agency budgets could be increased since additional revenue is sure to be collected.
Sen. Gloria Williamson, D-Philadelphia, unsuccessfully tried to amend the state Personnel Board budget to reduce funding by $675,000.
Because the Senate has passed a bill that would remove thousands of the state's employees from the oversight of the board for one year, some lawmakers said there wasn't a need to maintain that agency's current funding level.
"What on earth is there for the Personnel Board to do?" asked Bryan.
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