The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services met Thursday for the last of its initial budget hearings.
All state agencies continue to request increases despite a forecast $300 million reduction in state revenue.
The Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth requested an additional $75,000 to hire one full-time employee to manage their new foster parent grievance and complaint system as part of the Post-adjudication Review Board.
The State Department of Health requested an additional $18.5 million, $5.8 million of which would retire a bond in order to build a new public health laboratory.
The current lab was built in the 1970’s and cannot be retrofitted so an entirely new lab must be built, said Secretary of Health Terry Cline.
The lab currently screens every baby born in the state for 54 metabolic diseases and tests on about 190,000 different specimens adding up to 670,000 tests every year, said Cline.
“I know it’s a difficult budget situation…but this absolutely has to happen. I would put this at a very critical nature,” he said.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services brought a full house of service providers and individuals who receive services through the agency to their budget hearing Thursday before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services.
Subcommittee Chair Kimberly David, R-Porter, said their presence reinforced how important the department’s issues are.
The agency requested a $130.6 million budget increase for the fiscal year 2016 for 10 main priority areas.
“For decades this system was neglected so now we have to play catch up,” said Commissioner Terri White. “We know that unfortunately in Oklahoma because these issues haven’t been funded often the first contact people have that relates to their mental health issue is the back of a police car, the inside of a jail cell or the inside of a criminal justice cell.”
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