Really: "Not in Crisis???"
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Mental-health plan rejected
The judge in a long-running legal battle over mental-health care said Gov. Jan Brewer's plan doesn't offer the relief needed for most of the mentally ill in Maricopa County.
But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Karen O'Connor also indicated she isn't ready to embrace a proposal from mental-health advocates to recommend changes to the mental-health system.
Instead, O'Connor issued a series of questions for the advocates and gave them until next Wednesday to answer them.
In a ruling filed Wednesday, O'Connor said Brewer's proposal to create a pilot program won't work because it would only affect a fraction of the mentally-ill population - about 3 percent.
Earlier this year, O'Connor declared the system in crisis in the wake of a highly critical audit and called for proposals to remedy it.
O'Connor did say Brewer's pilot-program plan might be considered as part of a longer-range overhaul of the system but that it doesn't reach far enough to address the current crisis.
The judge also said she was disappointed that the governor did not talk with the mental-health advocates who brought the lawsuit before coming up with her pilot plan.
Joe Kanefield, the governor's legal counsel, said the judge acknowledged Brewer's concern that the state's fiscal crisis could hamper efforts to do a systemwide overhaul.
But he said the governor differs with the judge's perception that the system is in emergency mode.
"The governor's position is that the system is not in crisis, but definitely can be improved," he said.
Any improvement, however, must come from the Legislature, which sets state policy, and not from the courts, Kanefield added.
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