The Emissary, Volume 10, Number 9, October 1978 Page: 4
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I
I.
ifDr. Schoolar explains budget request for 1980-1981.
In two-hour presentation, he outlined accomplish-
ments of past and needs of future. TRIMS will
emphasize demonstration projects but will not reduce
patient care, he said.inquiry into TRIMS budget proposals
hears how much, for what, and whyIt was show and tell at the highest level.
In three days of hearings in the TRIMS auditorium,
administrators of TRIMS, three state schools, Rusk State
Hospital, and Beaumont State Center for Human
Development presented their budget requests to exam-
iners of the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor's
Budget and Planning Office.
Agency leaders gave the occasion their best shots, and
so did the examiners who had done voluminous home-
work. The TRIMS budget alone covers 298 pages. The
statewide hearings form the basis for recommendations to
the 66th legislative session beginning in January, during
which the state's operating funds are appropriated for two
years.
In a two-hour presentation illustrated by charts, TRIMS
director Dr. Joseph Schoolar explained the institute's
request for $15,381,000 for 1980 and $15,494,000 for
1981. Division and section chiefs answered questions
and added comments.
support from community leaders
For the first time the TRIMS budget and the separate
request for a new research, treatment, and training center
were publicly supported by community leaders. This
contrasted with the hearing two years ago, when leaders
of the Mental Health Association and the Mental Health
and Mental Retardation Authority (MHMRA) of Harris
County opposed the new building. The fear then was that
the $13 million construction costs might preclude funding
of more community-based services.
But this time mental health leaders of Houston had
behind them two years of cooperation and coordination
in the Mental Health Needs Council. Agency boards,
hospital leaders, and the medical and psychiatric societies
had reviewed and endorsed the budgets. An interagency
agreeement had made it clear that treatment and bed
space, particularly for children and adolescents for whom
4 so little residential care is available in Houston, would beshared (see story p. 3).
Angelee Duke, executive director of the Mental Health
Association of Houston and Harris County, told the
examiners that her organization supports the budget
request because TRIMS serves the county's patients "in a
very meaningful way." She spoke of the fast-growing
population of the city and of the inadequacy of the
present TRIMS hospital for adults and its unsuitability for
children.
Dr. Spencer Bayles, chair of the Mental Health Needs
Council and of the mental health committee of the Harris
County Medical Society, said, "For the first time the
requests of these two agencies (TRIMS and MHMRA) are
complementary rather than competitive. The major
expansion of MHMRA aims to meet a significant portion
of clearly and repeatedly identified unmet service needs.
The modest TRIMS expansion will make possible greater
knowledge and will increase the supply of capable, well-
trained personnel to provide better service." He brought
a supporting statement from the Houston Psychiatric
Society.
children and elderly are priorities
Dr. Schoolar explained the institute's work in all areas,
describing the basic questions in mental illness tha: must
be dealt with by research, training programs for psychia-
trists and other therapists, and treatment for mentally ill
persons at both ends of the age spectrum that the agency
considers its highest priority.
TRIMS hopes to establish a center for studies of chron-
icity, he said, that will emphasize brain diseases in aging,
chronic mental illness, and mental retardation. Grants
have been submitted to fund these studies, but "if we
don't get the grants, we'll have to do it anyway," he said.
Asked how many of the institute's programs depend
on new space, TRIMS leaders said that crowding of the
present building is a problem and that new space will
have to be rented to accommodate even currentk
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Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences. The Emissary, Volume 10, Number 9, October 1978, periodical, October 1978; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1588158/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.