Treat gambling addicts with gaming revenue

Editorial: Treat gambling addicts with gaming revenue

Posted: March 8, 2013

 

By The Capital-Journal

Editorial: Treat gambling addicts with gaming revenue

CJ Online

The Capital-Journal

March 8, 2013 8:43 PM EST

Copyright 2013 CJ Online. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s recent decision to reconsider his administration’s budget recommendations on the distribution of revenue generated for problem gambling services was welcomed by those charged with providing such services, but the brief controversy left unanswered an important question.

Is the state doing enough to identify problem gamblers and inform the public that help is available for them?

The Associated Press in March 2012 released a story that reported just more than 100 Kansans had sought help through the Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund during the previous year.

The fund is supported by a 2 percent surcharge on net gaming revenues from state-owned casinos and was included in the 2007 legislation that authorized the casinos. The state began collecting revenue for the fund once the casinos opened.

For the state’s current fiscal year, the budget calls for nearly $6.5 million to go to alcohol and drug treatment for low-income people who qualify for Medicaid and allocates to the Kansas Department of Corrections. Another million has been earmarked for non-Medicaid alcohol services, and about $740,000 goes to problem gambling services.

The governor’s budget recommendation for the fiscal year that begins July 1 would have allocated $868,000 total for problem gambling services and non-Medicaid alcohol services, which led gambling treatment advocates to assume only half of that figure would be available to treat gambling addicts.

Reversing the budget recommendation restores money to problem gambling services, but that amount still is only a fraction of the total being collected for that purpose.

Is that all that is really needed to treat the state’s gambling addicts? And what is the state doing to define and identify gambling addicts?

We’re not suggesting that the definition of a gambling addict be broadened just to find some way to spend more of the money being collected for that purpose, or that money be tossed at treatment programs that aren’t necessary. But reports from some of those who voted for the 2 percent surcharge in 2007 have said they weren’t sure at the time that it would generate enough money for treatment.

During the state’s relatively brief history with casino gambling, most people have read or heard stories about people who gambled the family into bankruptcy or stole money to fund trips to a casino.

Perhaps more should be done to inform problem gamblers, their family members and friends that help is available and tell them how to access the services.

Alcohol and drug addictions are equally damaging to individuals and families and the intent here isn’t to suggest treating those addictions is less important than treating problem gamblers. But the pool of money being discussed was brought into existence to combat gambling addictions and collected from casinos.

The Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund should be used to address other addictions only after the state has done all it should to identify and treat problems gamblers.

http://cjonline.com/opinion/2013-03-08/editorial-treat-gambling-addicts-gaming-revenue

Kansas: Breaking Promises

Rosy promises made are quickly broken, just as Massachusetts will do.

National group critical of Kansas funding of problem gambling addiction programs

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 07, 2013 TOPEKA, Kansas — The head of the National Council on Problem Gambling is urging Kansas to increase its support for programs that help residents with gambling addictions, saying the state has an ethical and financial responsibility to do more. Keith Whyte said Thursday that not all of the money from a state fund established in 2007 is making it to addiction programs. He said only 10 percent of the funds earmarked for addiction programs were being spent on those who need help. Whyte's comments came as Gov. Sam Brownback's administration is answering questions about budget proposals that initially appeared to reduce funds from the programs administered by the Department for Aging and Disability Services. Those funds have since been replaced from other sources. http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/0b1171d7e9664a259b86965c1a55e02e/KS--XGR--Problem-Gambling

Kansas: Robbing From Gambling Addicts

Counselors for gambling addictions voice concern about funding for problem

• By Fred Mann
• The Wichita Eagle

Friday, Feb. 15, 2013

Gambling addiction counselors and former addicts told the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission on Friday that they are worried about losing state funding to treat the problem.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s 2014 budget appears to entirely eliminate funds to treat problem gambling, Stephenie Roberts, a Kansas certified gambling counselor and member of the South Central Problem Gambling Task Force, told commissioners during a meeting in Mulvane.

Reducing access to treatment would increase crime, suicide and bankruptcy among people addicted to gambling, she said.

The law that created state-owned casinos in Kansas requires that 2 percent of the gambling revenue from those casinos go to the Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund. So far, Roberts said, the state has allocated only 9 percent of that 2 percent to problem gambling services.

“The state is basically robbing the gamblers of the protection that the Legislature put in place,” she said.

Racing and gaming commissioners had heard this message before and were sympathetic to her concerns.

“You are preaching to the choir,” Jay Shadwick, commission chairman, told Roberts. “This is a great concern to us, too.”

In Topeka, some lawmakers have been complaining that the problem gambling fund has been used to make up for budget shortfalls and used on programs not included in the law governing how gambling revenues are spent.

This year, the state budgeted $740,000 of the more than $9 million generated for the fund by the three state-owned casinos — the Kansas Star in Mulvane, the Boot Hill in Dodge City, and the Hollywood in Wyandotte County — for problem gambling. Most of the money — $6.5 million — went to Medicaid for services for other addictions.

Brownback’s office referred an inquiry about its budgeting plans for the fund to the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, which oversees the fund.

Angela de Rocha, director of communications for the department, said that reduced gambling revenue this year caused the governor to reduce funding for problem gambling programs in his 2014 budget to avoid overspending the fund.

But, she said, the state will offset the reduction by moving $946,000 from substance abuse treatment programs to problem gambling.

“The bottom line is that problem gambling is going to continue to be funded,” de Rocha said.

Roberts said that a letter from an official in the department said problem gambling services from January through June this year will be paid out of the state general fund instead of the problem gambling fund.

“Limiting it to the state budget is, in my opinion, an effort to wipe us out altogether,” she said.

“Is the state opening itself up to lawsuits for mishandling and misrepresenting to the citizens of south-central Kansas how that 2 percent fund is to be used?” Roberts asked commissioners. “What about our moral commitment to the gamblers at those casinos?”

Shadwick said the racing and gaming commission had no control over what happens to the fund, but could continue to be an advocate for it.

“We are doing all that we can,” he said. “We will try to continue in some way to do more.”
JoAnn Briles-Klein, a state-licensed certified gambling counselor in Wichita, told commissioners she sees people who have divorced over gambling and who have lost their entire retirement and education savings.

She said there is a 20 percent suicide rate among problem gamblers, the highest percentage of any clinical population.

While most of the fund is going to services provided by Medicaid, none of her clients is on Medicaid, she said. Most are retired or working.

“This is a huge problem, and it will be shifted to the taxpayers, where it never should be shifted,” Briles-Klein said.

The state’s problem gambling help-line would go away if funds aren’t available, she said.

A woman who identified herself as Judy W. said she has been in recovery from an addiction to gambling for four and a half years and told commissioners she used the help-line and another state program to start to turn her life around.

She urged the state to retain money to support that help for other problem gamblers.
“The state promised to take care of it, but they’re not,” she said. http://www.kansas.com/2013/02/15/2678306/counselors-for-gambling-addictions.html

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/02/15/2678306/counselors-for-gambling-addictions.html#storylink=cpy

 

Promises are Never Kept!

Money is earmarked, assistance is promised and funds are diverted! Massachusetts will do the same as they always have.

KDADS: State should spend more on services for gambling addiction

More casinos, more problems, officials say

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
Oct. 9, 2012

TOPEKA — A top official with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services told lawmakers today that the agency has asked Gov. Sam Brownback to consider a major increase in spending on services for people with gambling addictions.

“We’ve asked for a significant increase, but we’ve not gone whole hog or crazy,” said Gary Haulmark, commissioner of community services and programs at KDADS.

Haulmark testified before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. He said KDADS asked the governor to recommend that the Legislature spend roughly $4.2 million on problem gambling services in the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2013.

In the current fiscal year, the department is expected to spend around $740,000.

Whether Brownback approves the proposed increase remains to be seen. He’s not expected to announce his spending proposal until after the start of the 2013 legislative session in January.

Haulmark said the proposed increase was driven by the fact that the state now has three casinos operating this year in addition to those on Native American reservations. He said KDADS had put together a four-year plan for preventing and addressing gambling addiction.

“Until this point,” he said, the state’s approach to the problem had been “uncoordinated.”

Most of the money, if approved, would be tied to state-funded grants to local programs, including community mental health centers and drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, he said.

In Kansas, 2 percent of the state’s gaming revenues are deposited in a Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund and according to state law are supposed to be spent on “direct treatment of persons diagnosed as suffering from pathological gambling” or on “research regarding the impact of gambling on residents of Kansas.”

In recent years, lawmakers have used the fund for other purposes, including social services that had little or no connection to gambling.

The 2-percent set aside is expected to generate $8 million in fiscal 2013 and $8.7 million in fiscal 2014, according to KDADS officials.

http://www.khi.org/news/2012/oct/09/kdads-state-should-more-problem-gaming-services/

Cheating Gambling Addicts

Proposal curtails diversion of problem gambling funds

Reform before governor adds $3.5M to treatment assistance

Posted: October 9, 2012

 

By Tim Carpenter

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

     

Proposal curtails diversion of problem gambling funds

Tim Carpenter

October 9, 2012 4:31 PM EDT

Copyright 2012 CJ Online. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A budget recommendation submitted to Gov. Sam Brownback would dedicate more than four times the current $740,000 allocated by state government to help people with gambling, alcohol and other addiction problems, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal would begin to rectify decisions by the Kansas Legislature and a series of governors to reallocate more than 90 percent of the Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund, perhaps in violation of state statute, to general government services.

In 2010, the state invested 5 cents per capita in problem gambling services in Kansas. The current state budget stripped $6.5 million from the fund financed by a 2 percent surcharge on legal gaming revenue. Revenue flowing into the account has grown quickly with opening of casinos in Wyandotte and Sumner counties.

"Stakeholders were concerned that the fund had been historically allocated in a manner that was inconsistent with legislative intent," said Gary Haulmark, commissioner of community services and programs at the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services.

"A relatively small portion of these funds have been invested in developing a problem gambling service infrastructure," he said. "Rather large portions of the (fund) were used to substitute for Kansas general fund allocations without creating a net increase in addiction services."

Haulmark told a House-Senate budget committee the budget request pending before Brownback, who will issue his spending blueprint in January, would increase to $4.2 million the amount dedicated to enhancing addiction treatment.

Under the state agency's proposal on the governor's desk, $3.5 million raised by the gambling fund still would be funneled to state programs unrelated to issues of gambling or addiction.

Sen. John Vratil, a Republican from Johnson County, said legislators and governors had been "intellectually dishonest" by collecting gambling revenue earmarked for people struggling with additions and spending that cash elsewhere.

He said mistakes of the past didn't justify continuation of the practice of stripping gambling fund dollars for alternative uses.

"It is time for us to be honest with ourselves and with our constituents," Vratil said. "This is just embarrassing to me."

Haulmark said the decision to reduce by half the diversion of problem gambling and addiction funding should be viewed as a step in the right direction.

"I don't think we've gone whole hog," he said. "We've asked for an appropriate amount. There will be those who say that will not be enough of a jump. We want to build a problem gambling infrastructure that is responsible and judicious."

Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, said the state should be careful to invest newly available resources in programs proven to be effective.

"I just worry about plopping programs in place and measuring effectiveness later," she said.

Haulmark said the state hadn't previously conducted sufficient research to evaluate effectiveness of programs to help Kansans with problems with gambling and other addictions. He indicated comprehensive analysis would be done in the future.

The House-Senate committee took no action but discussed the issue along with other budget issues likely to come to the foreground in the 2013 session.

Les Sperling, chief executive officer of the Central Kansas Foundation in Salina, said the organization that provides addiction treatment in central and western Kansas supported the budget proposal to claw back state funding.

"I want the members to be aware that the need exists now in Kansas for substances abuse treatment and prevention programs," Sperling said.

http://cjonline.com/news/2012-10-09/proposal-curtails-diversion-problem-gambling-funds


Proposal would curtail diversion of problem gambling money, add $3.5M to ...
KWCH
The proposal still would allow $3.5 million raised by the gambling fund to be funneled to state programs unrelated to gambling or addiction problems. ___. Information from: The Topeka Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com. sns-ap-ks--problem ...