One of the issues that the Appropriations Committee will take up next week are proposed reductions to mental health services. The Baldacci administration says it is looking at cutting close to $20 million for adult and child mental health care. Consumers and advocates alike say that if the state keeps cutting funding for services, people will end up in emergency rooms and jails. They're recommending that the state find savings in other areas, ranging from administration to hospital beds. Charles Veit thinks it's the only solution.

At the Amistad social club in Portland, where he is a member, Veit can have a hot shower, a fresh meal and the company of other people who can relate to his struggles with anxiety and depression. "Hundreds of people come here," Veit says. "This is a safety net organization here at Amistad, and every one of these cuts affect somebody out there in one way or another."

Veit says some Amistad members would have to make co-payments where they didn't before for generic drugs. Others face new limits on the number of outpatient hospital visits for mental health they can have. Veit says that he'd rather see funding cut from somewhere like the Office of Consumer Affairs, where some former users of mental health services work with the state on mental health policy.

"The state has to balance the budget -- it's the law," he acknowledges. "But there are other places to look other than the direct services. There are other administrative costs out there that are much higher and and dig in way deep that I think to be seriously looked at. They've got to stop cutting the services. People are going to end up homeless and dead on the streets."

A new report by the advocacy group NAMI Maine strikes a similar theme. It questions, among other things, whether the state can afford its two psychiatric centers, Riverview in Augusta and Dorothea Dix in Bangor.

"Do we need more hosiptal beds? They cost a whole whopping lot more," says Carol Carothers, Executive Director of NAMI Maine in Augusta. "Or if we spent our money wisely in the community, could we could have fewer of those because, you know, a good intensive out-patient program costs you $10,000 a year, a hospital bed costs you $400,000 a year."

Carothers, whose own organization stands to lose more than $200,000 in funding, says with proper planning the state would not have to make the painful cuts to mental health it does each budget cycle. That's why NAMI Maine is calling for a freeze on mental health spending while an independent review panel studies which services are the most effective and which ones should be phased out.

"I think the Legislature can certainly take that kind of idea up, but the fact is Maine is experiencing a $438 million revenue shortfall and a commission isn't going to solve the problem this year," says Brenda Harvey, Commissioner of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services. "If we don't reduce our expenditures in this department, at some point I can't pay bills, and that means either we do the kinds of things we proposed, or we stop putting out payments to all providers at sometime in the fiscal year. I'm not sure that's a solution in the short run," Harvey says.

Harvey says the bottom line is this: "We will be using less state tax money than we did in 2002 serving about 120,000 more recipients and with 300 less state employees -- I think it's fair to say we have been streamlining and consolidating and trying to manage the taxpayer's money in the most efficient way."

Susan Lamb is a former state legislator who lobbies for NAMI. She acknowledges some of the group's recommendations will be a tough sell to lawmakers. But she is hoping that some champions of mental health agencies in on the health and human services committee, will go to bat for them. "Then the question becomes, how many champions on Health and Human Services go to Appropriations and say, 'You know what? These cuts are untenable.'"

The Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the issue of mental health cuts on Wednesday. NAMI plans to hold a rally beforehand.