Plans were already coming together for how nearly $125,000 could help Johnson County.
When Upstream Prevention was informed by state officials in April that it had received a grant to prevent substance abuse and promote healthy behaviors in the community, organizers from the nonprofit envisioned programs that would bring suicide prevention programs to Franklin and Greenwood schools.
Less than one month later, that money disappeared.
Last-minute changes to the state budget that was signed into law on April 27 changed the way the Indiana Department of Mental Health and Addiction distributed $3.5 million for the coming year. The changes forced the department to rescind grants that had already been promised to more than 15 nonprofits throughout the state, including Upstream Prevention.
Though they can reapply for grant money, that $3.5 million will now be awarded to just three organizations. For a small nonprofit such as Upstream Prevention, that makes it much less likely that it will be approved for the money again.
“In Johnson County, we have a suicide problem. We’ve had an increase in suicides, so it was well-timed to do what we were doing,” said Kathleen Ratcliff, executive director of Upstream Prevention. “For three weeks, we were in that planning, and then it got pulled away.”
The situation has its roots stretching back to March, when the Department of Mental Health and Addiction released a request for funding for newly formed organizations with programs aimed at substance use prevention and healthy behaviors.
Upstream Prevention applied. The organization is a nonprofit that is focused on making the community healthier through initiatives tackling youth substance abuse and mental health issues such as suicide.
The proposal outlined how they wanted to focus on suicide prevention, training teachers and staff at Franklin and Greenwood schools for anybody who was required or interested in receiving it. Organizers would also work with schools to implement peer-to-peer programming to teach youth what to look for in their friends and classmates who may be struggling, and how to tell a trusted adult.
Campaigns would also be put in place to expand on existing youth councils within the schools, prevent and working to end the stigma about mental health in the community, Ratcliff said.
“All of those items were building on communication skills, social-emotional skills, giving youth the skills to vocalize what was going on and how to address it. Then giving teachers and parents and the community that additional support,” she said.
On April 11, Upstream Prevention was notified that it had been awarded funding of more than $123,000. The amount was significant for such a small organization, Ratcliff said.
But on May 5, Ratcliff received another notice.
“(The Department of Mental Health and Addiction) is unable to move forward with a new grant for your proposed implementation at that time,” said the letter from Sirrilla D. Blackmon, deputy director of youth and prevention services.
According to the letter, the language dictating the grant had been altered in the newly passed budget.
Every state budget since 2014 had included appropriations for $3.5 million for the Child Psychiatric Services Fund, to be awarded by the Family and Social Services Administration to help organizations fund programs in which they partnered with elementary and high schools to tackle these social issues. The language in past budgets did not limit how many organizations could be awarded funding, or where those organizations were located.
House Bill 1001, which provided the 2020 and 2021 state budgets, made its way through the General Assembly earlier this year and contained the same wording — until the day before the bill was passed by both the Senate and House.
House Bill 1001 was sent to conference committee, to discuss and reconcile all of the amendments that had been made to the bill . At some point during the committee’s deliberation, that language was changed.
The bill that emerged from the committee hearing stated that the Family and Social Services Administration would distribute that $3.5 million to no more than three social service providers. Those three providers all had to be in regionally distinct areas of the state; they could not all come from the Indianapolis area, for example. Organizations also have to provide matching funds of 35 percent of the program’s cost.
Such requirements make it very difficult for small organizations such as Upstream Prevention, Ratcliff said.
“It doesn’t outright knock us out of it, but it pretty much does. That’s three times our operating budget now. I don’t have the staff and the capacity to do that,” she said.
The timing of the funding request process is what made this a challenge. In order to ensure these programs could start in July, the request process had to start in March, even before the budget was complete. That put the Family and Social Services Administration in a difficult position once the language in the bill changed.
“This is not (the Department of Mental Health and Addiction) saying that they changed their mind. It was the General Assembly saying that you can’t do this anymore, even though it’s been successful,” Ratcliff said. “The state agency has to do all of this scrambling now.”
Upstream Prevention is one of about 15 organizations that were impacted by changes. Ratcliff has not received any information about why the changes to the budget bill were made, and does not expect any explanation forthcoming. She understands that tweaks like this are common in legislation.
Her complaint is that the changes limit what smaller agencies all over the state are able to do to address serious health issues facing our communities.
“It makes it that much more challenging for an organization our size,” Ratcliff said. “We were already setting up meetings with the schools this summer, to make sure what we were doing met their needs. We thought we had the funding. And now it gets pulled back.”
