Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Interim Commissioner Greg Slavonic confirmed the agency is ending hundreds of items in provider contracts in an effort to guide it "back to a balanced budget."
A document from Aug. 27, first obtained by NonDoc, outlined a review of 573 contract line items covering a wide range of services supporting addiction treatment, children, housing and employment, adult mental health and criminal justice. Of those, 312 are labeled as not being renewed, 122 as facing a funding reduction and 128 as being renewed.
Zack Stoycoff, Healthy Minds Policy Initiative's executive director, said he doesn't think the list given to lawmakers paints a final picture of what cuts will look like. He said the $40 million in cuts won't solve the agency's budget crisis.
"There's a lot of unanswered questions that the department and that legislators have to get to the bottom of," he said.
Slavonic said in an emailed statement the agency reviewed nearly 800 contracts "line by line" to make decisions about which portions to cut.
"ODMHSAS has been operating with more contracts than our budget can sustain," Slavonic said. " … These were very difficult decisions, but we cannot spend more than we have."
Contract line item cancellations are expected to go into effect at the beginning of October. The agency would not release a list of cuts because it is "still working with impacted vendors."
Contracts from the previous fiscal year were extended by 90 days in July to allow for a detailed review, a department official told OPMX and StateImpact. Decisions about which contract items to maintain were made using two guiding principles, including protecting essential services that align with the agency's core mission and fiscal sustainability, the official said.
Decisions were made by the commissioner's leadership team over the last two months, the official said. They said funding non-renewed contract items would require appropriations.
The agency has been the subject of intense financial scrutiny since the spring, when it revealed it was $30 million short of fulfilling its budget. The announcement caught legislators by surprise, and agency officials struggled to explain how the agency ran out of money, spurring multiple concurrent investigations into its spending.
Lawmakers agreed to provide an emergency appropriation so the agency could pay its employees through the end of the fiscal year. In a near-unanimous vote, both chambers removed previous Commissioner Allie Friesen from her role at the head of the agency, citing a loss of confidence in her leadership.
Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt (D-Oklahoma City) said she was part of the group of lawmakers briefed by the agency last week about pending cuts. She said she was trying to figure out how to inform the remainder of her caucus, but by then, the news was already public.
"It's quick – especially when I think that the Legislature showed its willingness to fund what was needed for mental health treatment," Kirt said. "I think that it would be better to start with – if a supplemental is needed – it'd be better to start with another supplemental and make sure the cuts are right, or that the reductions are not going to cause more harm."
Kirt said lawmakers were asked to bring institutional knowledge of legislative mandates that dictate how money is required to be spent. She said understanding the potential impacts of individual cuts would require ample research.
"I think [that] is the challenge of giving reasonable feedback," Kirt said.
Lawmakers could host a special session and provide a supplemental appropriation, Kirt said. She is concerned about the agency's proposed cuts and looming federal cuts. She worries Oklahomans won't have access to the treatment they need.
"We've now been through six months of unknowns, and then, now people are saying, 'Well, these are pretty catastrophic cuts for a lot of major service areas,'" Kirt said. "So I'm just worried about the whole treatment safety net."
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