ACTION NEEDED TODAY. Tell Your State Representative: SB 714 is a Trojan Horse

ACTION NEEDED TODAY. Tell Your State Representative: SB 714 is a Trojan Horse

Senate Bill 714 - a $539.1 million appropriations bill with huge expenditures for health and mental health - has passed the Senate. However, as good as some of the funding is in the bill, SB 714 ties much of the funding to the additional passage of SBs 597 and 598, which privatizes the community mental health system. NASW strongly opposes SB 597 and 598, and opposes the link between SB 714 and SB 597 and 598.

While there are many aspects of SB 714 that NASW-Michigan supports (including funds for jail diversion and crisis stabilization units, as well as expanding student loan repayment programs), SB 714 will severely damage Michigan’s Community Mental Health system and cause significant harm to the 320,000+ Michiganders who rely on its stability if it stays tied to SB 597 & 598.

Read more about NASW-Michigan’s opposition to SBs 597 and 598 here . 

Action

It is imperative that you call your State Representative and ask them to help break the tie-bar between SB 714, and SB 597 & 598. Let them know that the beneficial programs funded in SB 714 won’t work in a privately-funded system that will limit care.

Here is some language you can use 

“As a social worker and constituent in your district I am writing to ask you to please amend Senate Bill 714 to break the tie-bars to SB 597 and 598. As a mental health professional, I support the need for improvements within the current system within SB 714; however, if this legislation stays tied to SB 597 and 598, it would result in  the privatization of the community mental health system in Michigan. This will severely damage Michigan’s Community Mental Health system and cause significant harm to the 320,000+ Michiganders who rely on its stability. SB 714 makes good improvements to the public mental health system, suggested by many advocates for patients. SB 597 and 598 would undo, rather than improve, that system.”