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DENVER - As the state considers ways to make up for a projected $384 million budget shortfall - supporters of mental health programs have collected 1,200 signatures petitioning Gov. Bill Ritter to spare mental health programs.
August 14, dozens of advocates for people who suffer from mental illness rallied on the west steps of the State Capitol to bring attention to their plight.
They say further cuts to mental health services in Colorado will only cost the state more in the long run.
"We know it cost shifts, when he takes a dollar away from mental health, we know it sends people to more expensive treatment options - jails, emergency rooms, prisons. And it costs a lot more to manage those people in those higher-structured environments," said Lacey Berumen with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Colorado.
Ritter's spokesman said mental health issues are important to the governor and first lady, but he made no promises - saying many public services will have to be affected because of the magnitude of the shortfall.
The governor is expected to announce which programs will be cut on Tuesday when he presents his proposal to the legislature's Joint Budget Committee.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From 9 TV News in Colorado:
