• Need-to-Know News: Nov. 18, 2011

    November 18, 2011

    Updates from Us

    • On Monday, LAC's Director/President, Paul Samuels spoke at the New York meeting of the Department of Health and Human Services' Regional Listening Sessions about the Essential Health Benefits package to be required under the healthcare reform law. In his testimony, Mr. Samuels emphasized the need for the benefits package to mandate full parity in the coverage of mental health and substance use disorders.
    • LAC's Director of New York State Policy, Tracie Gardner, testified on Thursday before a joint Assembly Committee hearing about the merger of the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives (DPCA) and the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) and the impact of the merger on ATI and Reentry. In her comments, Ms. Gardner thanked the New York State Assembly for their years of support for these programs and described the "strong support and skillful administration" provided by OPCA and DCJS to ensure continued funding for ATI and Reentry programs during a period of tightened budgets. Lastly, Ms. Gardner called for the state to create a permanent funding stream for these programs.
    • Elizabeth Farid, the Deputy Director of the National H.I.R.E. Network, will co-present a webinar training for advocates, together with staff from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Sentencing Project and the National Employment Law Project, on "Reducing Employment Barriers for People with Criminal Records." Visit this site to register for the training.

    Headlines on Our Issues

    State

    • On Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he may call the State Legislature into an extraordinary session before the coming year's session begins in January to confront a newly-revealed shortfall of $350 million in the current year budget. The Governor also announced that the budget shortfall for the next fiscal year had grown from a projected $2.4 billion to at least $3 billion, and could possibly run as high as $3.5 billion.
    National

    • This week, Congress passed, and the President signed, appropriations legislation for the Department of Justice and other federal agencies for FY2012, which included $63 million in funding for the Second Chance Act. This represents a huge victory for reentry programs as the original Senate version of the bill did not including any funding for Second Chance.
    • On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Oral arguments are scheduled for March 2012, with a decision expected in June.
    • FUNDING NEWS: On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Health Care Innovation Challenge, which will award up to $1 billion in grants to innovative projects that test creative ways to save money and deliver high quality medical care to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, particularly those individuals with the highest health care needs. The Challenge, which is funded by the Affordable Care Act, will award grants in March for projects that can begin within six months. Proposals are encouraged to focus on high cost/high-risk groups, including those with mental health or substance abuse issues.

    From Our Partners

    • The Addiction Treatment Providers Association (ATPA) and the New York Association of Drug Treatment Court Professionals's (NYADCTP) Eighth Annual New York Criminal Justice & Substance Abuse Conference and Exhibit will take place in Brooklyn on December 2. This year's conference is called "Criminal Justice And Treatment: A Partnership In Changing Times." For more information or to register, click here.
    • Congratulations to the Young Women of Color HIV/AIDS Coalition who, this week, were awarded one of the 2011 Union Square Social Justice Awards.
    • Prisoners are People Too! will be hosting its monthly Community Education Meeting in Buffalo on Monday, November 28. For more information, click here.
    • The Community Service Society and the Children's Aid Society are co-hosting an event on youth disconnection called "Whatever it Takes: Strategies for Preventing and Addressing Youth Disconnection" at the New York Bar Association on December 1.
    • This week, the Sentencing Project released a paper on federal sentencing reform for crack cocaine titled "Breakthrough in U.S. Drug Sentencing Reform: The Fair Sentencing Act and the Unfinished Reform Agenda."
    • Exponents and its founder and president, Howard Josepher, were recently profiled in an article on the news site Raw Story.