Governor Charlie Baker has proposed $ 2.9 million for housing, transportation, environmental protection and other priorities. The one-day hearing by two legislative committees was the latest investigation into how Beacon Hill should spend approximately $ 5 billion on pandemic relief funds obtained through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Sudders told the Legislative Legislature’s Joint Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight that the majority of the money would be used to increase staffing levels. Other funds would be used to support current behavioral health care programs.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State for Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders pitched to allocate $ 175 million to support behavioral health programs that address mental health and substance abuse, among other things.
“The pandemic has exacerbated labor shortages in all sectors, but particularly in health and human resources,” said Sudders.
Attorney General Maura Healey reiterated these concerns and urged lawmakers to divert aid funds to behavioral therapy providers. She said the state needs to hire more psychologists, social workers, nurses and recovery counselors.
“We have a second pandemic of mental illness and substance abuse and our system is not ready for it,” Healey told the panel. “We just don’t have enough vendors to meet our behavioral health needs.”
Healey also urged lawmakers to use some of the ARPA funding to supplement the state’s grocery branding program and similar programs.
Likewise, deaths from opioid-related overdoses have increased during the pandemic. According to the Department of Health, Massachusetts there were 2,104 confirmed and suspected opioid-related deaths in 2020, a 5% increase from the previous year.
Medical experts say the pandemic has dramatically increased mental health problems among school-age children. Meanwhile, a lack of beds in government facilities is causing hundreds of psychiatric patients to be “fed” in emergency rooms.
Other groups and individuals applied for some of the federal funding, which ranged from funding for COVID-19 testing to financial aid for safety net hospitals, including Lawrence General.
A coalition of public health groups, including the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards and the Massachusetts Public Health Association, proposed a plan to spend $ 251 million of the funds to support local health officials. The groups held a rally outside the statehouse prior to the Tuesday hearing.
“Our local public health system is broken. It leaves people in small, rural and low-income urban communities without critical protection, ”Senator Joanne Comerford, D-Northampton, told the plan’s support panel.
“Let’s make the investments necessary to keep our constituents healthy and safe in order to protect themselves from future pandemics,” she said.
Christian M. Wade runs the Massachusetts Statehouse for the North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@northofboston.com
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