State social services face $86.6 million in reductions - Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s budget reductions announced Thursday include reductions of more than $86.6 million to mental health, health and human resources agencies.

These are the agencies that make sure people with serious mental illness get treatment, that waters where seafood is harvested are routinely tested for contaminants so consumers don’t get sick, that families get the child support due them, among many other things.

“Folks can sometimes forget and think about the budget as just a series of numbers on a piece of paper,” said Michael Cassidy, executive director of The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a nonprofit agency in Richmond.

“They forget the ways in which those services that government provide in terms of health and safety inspections, in terms of certifying medical professionals . . . the ways in which we depend on all of those in our everyday lives [are] going to be impacted by these [reductions],” Cassidy said.

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