On Monday night, The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners voted 4-3 to give $800,000 to CenterPoint Human Services, the agency that provides mental health, substance abuse and developmental disability services in the county.

Stokes County Commissioners are also reviewing a proposal.

In their living room at their home in King, Lisa Visek and her 23 year-old daughter Hannah Runkel are enjoying collages and art work that Hannah made at the Enrichment Center in Winston-Salem.

“This is blue, right Hannah? Yes. What is this Hannah? A candy bar,” said Visek, as she flips through several pages with Hannah.

Hannah was born with developmental disabilities and attends classes at the center 4 to 5 times a week. The petite young woman smiles with big dimples as she describes how she feels about her progress in the program.

“It makes me feel happy. It makes we feel wonderful. It makes me feel joy, said Runkel.

Visek moved from South Florida to King North Carolina in 2006. Hannah has been on a waiting list to receive services at enrichment center also known as the ARC, or Association for Retarded Citizens for the past six years. She was admitted into the program in January.

“She on the way home tells me what she did that day and she talks about her friends and how they encourage each other to do their best and sometimes pottery breaks or a drawing doesn’t turn out just right so I’ve seen them encourage each other, said Visek.

Centerpoint, the agency mandated by the state to oversee these services, expects to lose $1.7 million of its federal block grant funding, while at the same time it's having to spend a lot of money to transition to a new management and service delivery format mandated by the state.

Compounding matters, the state legislature unexpectedly sped up the time frame to meet new Medicaid waiver rules. 

“At the same time, especially in these economic conditions, you see the number of individuals needing behavioral health services rising drastically and just over the last couple of fiscal years the number of consumers that we serve has increased 19 percent, said Betty Taylor, CEO of Centerpoint.

As a result they're an additional $5 million in the hole, so they're asking the counties they serve to advance them the funds they need now from the money the state will require them to pay Centerpoint in coming years to help them get through the transitions, with as little effect on their clients as possible.  Commissioners in Davie and Rockingham Counties have already approved the request.

During the process, Centerpoint and Taylor have been criticized for being top heavy in administration and staffing, including providing salary raises for merit and educational achievements in a time of tight budgets. They also have been accused of mismanaging some of the agency’s resources. But Taylor said a lot of the scrutiny is unfair.

“We are required to add 90 clinical positions and if you look at the history of merit raises given to all of our staff over the last several years it has been very minimal, minimal at a time when they were assuming broader responsibilities, putting in longer hours and meeting tougher challenges,” said Taylor.

Centerpoint Human Services says 48 providers are affected by the funding cuts, which are retroactive to July 1. Dr. Chad Stevens, Medical Director for the agency, said he’s worried about the systemic impact of more funding cuts.

“We are seeing significant impacts already. The amount of utilization of emergency rooms continues to increase and this is a significant concern about how this impacts people’s ability to receive services and in a timely manner to keep them out of crisis,” said Steven.

Visek is an artist and recently lost her job at a local art gallery. She struggles at times to pay the $40 monthly copay for Hannah’s program. Visek said she worries about the impact of the funding cuts on families like hers.

“If something happens to one or two days, wow, moms and dads could lose jobs, they could lose hours, they could lose money that they desperately need. A lot of us in this family situation, we don’t all make  a lot of money and if we lose one or two days that could really affect our income and finding someone to watch that person or take care of that would be a real hit to lose the day and pay more,” said Visek.