Bigger drug-treatment budget sought

Hoping to stop the threatened loss of millions of dollars in federal substance abuse aid, Governor Mitt Romney has reversed course and is now campaigning for a 40 percent increase in state drug-treatment spending.

After proposing a $2 million cut to the state's substance-abuse program earlier this year, Romney this week asked the state Senate to boost the budget of the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services from $33.7 million to $47.1 million.

The administration changed its position after the Globe reported in April that Massachusetts was on the verge of forfeiting more than $9 million in federal aid for treating drug users, a penalty for three years of reductions in substance-abuse services. Romney traveled to Washington this month to plead the state's case with US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, whose agency is threatening to cut its grant to Massachusetts.

"What this will hopefully do is help us avoid any kind of reduction in the federal grant," Public Health Commissioner Christine C. Ferguson said yesterday. "The governor has been really passionate about making sure we don't lose any federal funds."

Romney's administration, working with Senate Republican leader Brian P. Lees of East Longmeadow, has proposed spending $10.9 million more on drug treatment than the House and Senate have allotted in their versions of the state's fiscal year 2005 budget, and $13.4 million more than the state now spends.

Advocates and top legislators were optimistic yesterday about the prospects for a spending boost.

"The feds finally played hardball, and Commissioner Ferguson realized she wasn't going to get the money," said Elizabeth Funk, president of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Corporations of Massachusetts Inc, a 100-member trade association. "Now, the House and the Senate and the administration appear to be in the same place in their understanding of the problem and wanting to fix it."

The House has already passed its budget, and the Senate last night approved a proposed $22.5 billion state budget plan, but it was not clear late last night if it included the increase in substance abuse spending. If the Senate votes for the increase, a joint House-Senate committee then would consider it for the final state budget.

The proposal to increase spending comes as New England is in the midst of an epidemic of heroin use and after treatment centers absorbed several years of cuts from the Department of Public Health along with reductions in other state programs. The federal government has taken note of those cuts, which have been replicated in other states. States that receive grants from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration pledge to maintain steady financial support for their substance abuse programs. Because Massachusetts has not done so, the federal agency notified the state late last year that it is violating the grant program's rules and that, under a complex formula, it will lose $9.2 million from the $34.3 million it was poised to receive.

Mark Weber, a spokesman for the federal substance abuse agency, said yesterday that agency representatives have talked to Massachusetts authorities but that the federal government still believes the state is out of compliance.

But, Weber said, if Massachusetts does spend more on substance abuse, "it would certainly be taken into consideration." The federal government will make its decisions about grants before Sept. 30.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.