On Wednesday morning, Troy Smith learned almost half the funding for the 31st Judicial District’s drug court program had been eliminated as of the previous evening.
Smith directs the drug court program, which works to rehabilitate those convicted of drug-related crimes as an alternative to incarceration in the district’s four counties, Allen, Neosho, Wilson, and Woodson.
Smith had received no warning of the cuts. Just an email from the federal program known as SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, that told him the agency is immediately eliminating its funding “in order to better prioritize agency resources.”
The news, “Came out of the blue,” Smith said. “There had been no previous correspondence that would have led us to believe that this was a possibility.”
His first reaction was that he had made a mistake.
“I went through my emails wondering if I had missed a deadline. That maybe I had done something that caused us to be in this predicament,” he said.
“But then I saw it was pretty widespread.”
In one fell swoop, 2,000 addiction and mental health programs nationwide received the same form letter with cuts amounting to $2 billion.
Almost as quickly, Smith, et al, learned the funding was to be restored.
Late Wednesday evening, the news came that pushback by Congressional lawmakers was enough to make Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees SAMHSA, rethink the decision.
It wasn’t until Thursday evening that Smith received official notice that the cuts had been rescinded.
The four-sentence missive contained no justification for the about-face, Smith said.
DRUGS ARE behind most every crime, said Smith. “They’re the No. 1 reason why people are in prison and on supervision.”
The local drug court program is in its third year of a five-year SAMHSA grant that allots $300,000 a year for primarily drug and alcohol treatment and to a lesser extent medically assisted treatment on an inpatient or outpatient basis, defense counsel, testing services, employee training and transportation services.
None of the funds are used to pay employees. The department is funded through the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Smith, 49, is a native of Iola, graduating from Iola High School in 1994 and from Wichita State University in 1999.
