$80 million for mental health: Did it do any good?

The Oregon Capital Chronicle has a pretty good story up here. It's about what the auditors found when they tried to track the results of the many tens of millions of dollars that the Oregon legislature has been giving the state health department to develop a bigger and better mental health workforce than the pathetic setup we have now – one of the nation's worst.

And surprise! Nobody can tell whether the tens of millions have done any good. The state treats burning through money as the be-all and end-all of its programs, and much of the time, they can't even get that done. Whether the dough is actually making a difference is far down the list of bureaucratic concerns.

The agency cannot show the effectiveness of its programs because it did not design performance metrics to show their impact, the agency’s auditors concluded in an internal report. This has restricted the agency’s ability to demonstrate the long-term benefits to lawmakers or communities.

Another major problem: a lack of planning. 

“Without an effective plan, OHA could not properly engage intended communities across Oregon to provide necessary retention and recruitment efforts to develop and grow the behavioral health pipeline,” auditors wrote in the January report, obtained by the Capital Chronicle through a public records request....

An analyst with the authority said the data and reporting requirements need to be better.

“It’s not sufficient and we aren’t prepared to answer questions about how the program has helped Oregonians,” the analyst told auditors.

While the outcomes are fuzzy, auditors also acknowledged the money went out widely: It has covered more than 40 clinical supervision grants, helped pay student loans for more than 250 people, provided 20 grants to organizations for bonuses and housing. Nearly 60 peer support organizations, which connect clients to peers with similar experiences, also have received grants. 

Wow. Paying student loans, paying bonuses to nonprofit minions, shelling out grants to the motley "peer support" types, and no follow-up? If you were trying to write a recipe for waste and corruption, you'd be hard-pressed to do much better.

A lot of the malfeasance noted in the story happened under the watch of former head honchos of the "toxic" health authority, including one particularly notorious dude. But the new kid running the place has been around for seven months now, and so far I haven't noticed a drastic improvement to the way the agency operates, have you? I hope she'll take a break from her main focus of mollifying the liquor industry and get the state off the dime when it comes to mental health. Oregon is certifiably one of the sickest-in-the-head places in the world.