Florida Senate budget chief Latvala pledges aid to mental health programs

Alexandra Glorioso
Naples

The Florida Senate’s budget chairman pledged Wednesday to adequately fund mental health programs gutted in the last legislative session.

Sen. Jack Latvala sits in the chamber as legislators gather for the first day of session at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.

“We’re going to make another effort at that next year,” said Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, at a luncheon in Fort Myers. “And that’s going to be one of the things I work hardest on next year.”

The state’s landmark legislation, originally passed in 2016, set up a statewide system to fund and coordinate care for mental health patients among law enforcement, hospitals and the courts. It was gutted during the last lawmaking session.

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Some Republican senators quietly have pointed a finger for the mental health funding problem at their colleague, state Sen. Anitere Flores, who was chairwoman of the health care appropriations committee. Flores, R-Miami, couldn’t be reached to comment Wednesday.

Latvala said he didn’t remember how funding fell through the cracks.

“But I am going to do some investigation of the mental health substance-abuse area myself between now and session," said Latvala, a possible candidate for governor. "And I will have some positions and some goals myself next session.”

Latvala said he delegated the responsibility of mental health funding to Flores because “she was good with it and I just let her do it.”

Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, didn't want to lay blame for who cut the funding to the statewide program but said it was "unfortunately" cut and that she wants to restore it. Passidomo sat on the health care appropriations committee Flores chaired.

In 2016 the law included $20 million for mental health crisis centers called centralized receiving facilities, which function as alternatives to hospital emergency rooms for mental health patients.

In addition, the Department of Children and Families cobbled together $3.2 million for housing and coordination of care, the other two main pillars of the bill, SB12. The reforms were spurred by investigative reports from the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

This year the crisis centers were cut by $8.2 million, or 40 percent. Advocates said they will again try to fund housing and care coordination through the Department of Children and Families but likely won’t get all the funds as last year.

“We can maybe restore it by two-thirds for care coordination and housing, which are major emphasis areas for this bill. But we’re still missing about a million dollars,” said Natalie Kelly, who oversees a statewide organization for mental health and treatment of substance abuse.

Collier County’s mental health treatment center, the David Lawrence Center in East Naples, hasn’t yet applied to be a new state receiving facility because it has had a hard time coming up with enough local funding to qualify for the state program.

But the number of patients it must care for continues to grow. In the last decade, the facility has seen referrals from the Sheriff’s Office alone grow by 225 percent, said Scott Burgess, CEO of the David Lawrence Center.

Burgess said that because the center has seen such an influx of patients, it was planning to apply for state funding in the future. But the funding cuts make that less likely now.

“The fact that they are cutting back on programs they just agreed to fund raises a lot of uncertainty for the future,” Burgess said.

Lee Memorial Health System board member and registered nurse Nancy McGovern said the state’s budget cuts to the statewide mental health program puts even more pressure on hospitals like Lee Memorial.

“Our facilities cannot handle the amount of individuals with mental health issues and the current mental health funding allocations,” McGovern said.

Lawmakers received a chilling reminder Tuesday of the dangers of mental health problems in Florida when a Miami-area man, who said he had stopped taking his medications, was arrested on suspicion he made threats against state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz.

Latvala was speaking at The Marina at Edison Ford in Fort Myers on Wednesday to the nonpartisan political group called Tiger Bay of Southwest Florida. He has been making the rounds before deciding whether to run for governor. Gov. Rick Scott, first elected in 2010, cannot run in 2018 because of term limits. 

Agricultural Commissioner Adam Putnam is an early front-runner for governor and has $9 million in cash on hand through his committee Florida Grown. Latvala has $3.4 million through his three political committees. 

“History is replete with races where the guy with the most money doesn’t win,” Latvala said. “People are going to be looking at ideas and qualifications and what people have been able to do and produce, and problems they’ve been able to solve. And I’ll put mine up against any of these guys.”

He has about six weeks to decide whether he will announce he is a candidate, he said. And if money isn’t an issue, he acknowledged his personal health is.

“It’s still there,” Latvala said, laughing while rubbing his belly, referring to his weight. “I haven’t lost it yet. We’ll just have to wait and see.”