By Rep. Justin Humphrey
OKLAHOMA CITY – Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, today issued the following statements toward the governor and the Oklahoma Legislature asking them to stop the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services from carrying out what he calls “a tragic plan.
“The director of the Department of Mental Health’s latest plan to dismantle the agency by privatizing regions is outrageous and ludicrous. The department’s audit revealed a $43 million deficiency. In a multimillion-dollar agency, tracking a loss of $100 dollars might be difficult, but tracking a loss of $43 million dollars should be simple. Yet no one has been arrested for stealing state funds.
“It should be abundantly evident the agency’s dilemma is not found in the regional offices or in the communities. The conundrum is not complicated. The agency is swamped with rogue and unmanageable administrators. To put it simpler, the agency has too many bosses and not enough people doing the jobs.”
Humphrey said the department’s core function is to attend to the mentally ill in Oklahoma communities, but once again, the department is downsizing by reducing services and has failed to focus on its massive administration.
Last year, Humphrey said he made many Oklahomans extremely mad by filing a bill to abolish the department. He said he took this extreme measure to declare that mental health was missing money, paid line staff poorly, had a shortage of line staff and had an inconceivable lack of inpatient mental health beds.
“Forecasting the department’s problems was not difficult,” Humphrey said. “It doesn’t take a prophet to estimate the disaster of this privatization plan. Consequently, I don’t oppose privatization for some services, but this plan does not address any of the underlying issues. The obvious priorities should be stopping theft, addressing oversized unmanageable administration, lack of inpatient beds, shortage of line staff and underpaid line staff.
“The current plan reduces services and will create a much greater mental health crisis for Oklahomans. The lack of inpatient beds and oversized administration are unquestionably the primary and most immediate issues. Both issues are not complicated and can easily be addressed.”