President’s Budget Sustains Critical Programs

On May 7, 2009, SAMHSA presented its Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Congressional Justification, outlining a budget request totaling $3.5 billion.

The request, SAMHSA’s first budget under the Obama Administration, reflects an increase of $59 million above FY 2009. The budget continues Federal support for state and local efforts to increase the availability of quality prevention and treatment services for substance abuse and mental illness.

During the last decade, more than 25 million people across the Nation used an illicit drug for the first time and more than 300,000 individuals died from suicide. The FY 2010 Budget invests in evidence-based prevention, early intervention, treatment, and recovery services to respond to these preventable and treatable public health problems.

The budget includes funding increases to expand the treatment capacity of drug courts, protect methamphetamine’s youngest victims, improve children’s mental health, and reach individuals suffering from mental illness who are facing homelessness. These programmatic increases are partially supported through the discontinuation of one-time projects that were funded in FY 2009.

The President’s FY 2010 Budget for SAMHSA’s Programs of Regional and National Significance proposes $335.8 million for the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), $198.3 million for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), and $458.1 million for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT).

Program Increases

SAMHSA’s Congressional Justification also provides additional funding for successful grant programs.

Children’s Mental Health. The budget provides $125 million, an increase of $17 million, for grants to states and localities to support the development of comprehensive community-based systems of care for children and adolescents with serious emotional disorders. This program directly supports SAMHSA’s Children and Families priority area. In FY 2010, this program will serve a total of 13,051 children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances.

First authorized in 1992, the program supports the development of comprehensive, community-based systems of care for children and adolescents with serious emotional disorders and their families.

Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH). In FY 2010, the PATH formula grant program, which is a flexible funding stream that allows local programs to use their grant funds in ways most appropriate for their communities to assist individuals in the transition from homelessness, is allotted $68 million, an increase of $8 million from FY 2009.

Established in 1991, PATH funds community-based support services to individuals with serious mental illnesses who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Grantees help link hard-to-reach people who are homeless with mental health and substance abuse treatment and housing, regardless of the severity and duration of these individuals’ illnesses.

The FY 2010 President’s Budget request for PATH is anticipated to serve an additional 11,000 individuals facing homelessness.

Treatment Drug Courts. The FY 2010 President’s Budget request is $87.6 million, an increase of $50.0 million above FY 2009. Of the increase, $35.0 million will expand the Treatment Drug Courts program for a total of $58.9 million, of which $5.0 million is focused on protecting the youngest victims of families affected by methamphetamine abuse. The remaining $15.0 million will expand the Ex-Offender Re-Entry program for a total of $23.0 million. The increase in funds in the Criminal Justice portfolio will result in an approximate target of 7,000 clients, including Drug Courts and Ex-Offender Re-Entry.

In FY 2010, Treatment Drug Courts funding will provide services supporting substance abuse treatment, assessment, case management, and program coordination to those in need of treatment drug court services. Priority for the use of funding will be given to addressing gaps in the continuum of treatment. (See SAMHSA News online, March/April 2009.)

Other Funding

Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block Grant. The budget includes $1.8 billion, the same level as FY 2009, for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, which distributes funding to 60 states and jurisdictions to plan, implement, and evaluate substance abuse prevention and treatment services. At least 20 percent of this funding supports education and counseling to reduce the risk of substance abuse among individuals before they become addicted.

Access to Recovery (ATR). The budget includes $99 million, the same level as FY 2009, to support states and tribes in providing individuals facing substance abuse with a choice among various clinical treatment and recovery support service providers, including faith- and neighborhood-based providers.

National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER). The budget includes $2 million, the same level as FY 2009, to support the establishment and improvement of state-administered, controlled substance monitoring programs, as authorized by the NASPER Act of 2005.

These programs will ensure that health care providers have access to accurate, timely, prescription information that they can use as a tool for early identification of patients at risk of addiction.

HIV/AIDS Among Minority Populations. The Budget includes $117 million to foster behavioral health among African Americans, Latinos, and other ethnic and racial minority populations experiencing disproportionate increases in HIV/AIDS.

Science and Service Activities. Science and Service programs promote the identification and increase the availability of practices that are thought to have broad potential for service improvement.

SAMHSA’s Congressional Justification requests funding for Science and Service programs for CMHS ($27.7 million), CSAP ($26.6 million), and CSAT ($26.9 million).

Funding supports various activities, including those related to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices, HIV/AIDS education, the SAMHSA Health Information Network, and Addiction Technology Transfer Centers.

See SAMHSA’s Congressional Justification.

Find out more detailed information about the President’s FY 2010 Budget.