SENATE SENIOR CITIZENS, VETERANS' AFFAIRS AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE
STATEMENT TO
SENATE COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR
SENATE, No. 1692
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
DATED: MAY 8, 1997
The Senate Senior Citizens, Veterans' Affairs and Human Services Committee favorably reports Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Bill No. 1692.
This committee substitute is intended to facilitate the redirection of State mental health and developmental disability services funding from institutional settings to community-based programs by ensuring an orderly and deliberative approach to the downsizing of State psychiatric hospitals and developmental centers.
The committee substitute requires the Commissioner of Human Services to:
a. take such actions as are necessary to ensure that as a mental health facility closes that all funds be redirected to services in the community thereby increasing the State's financial support to community mental health services for its citizens, except for money already earmarked for institutional use through the Marlboro Redirection Plan.
b. ensure that when individuals with a developmental disability move into the community from a developmental center affected by a significant service reduction, funding utilized for the individual in the developmental center shall be used to fund the individual's community placement.
The committee substitute also provides that any funding from the developmental center placement not needed to fully fund the community placement for that individual shall be directed toward the reduction of the waiting list for services in the Division of Developmental Disabilities in the department. Additionally, the substitute provides that all monies received by the State from the sale of facility property shall be earmarked exclusively for capital and equipment costs associated with the development of community placement for persons with serious mental illness or developmental disabilities, according to criteria to be established by the commissioner.