Budget cuts force consolidation of Prevention Management offices

As of July 1, services provided through the Hot Springs County office of the Prevention Management Organization (PMO) of Wyoming are now handled through the Washakie County office, which covers both counties.

The consolidation of services comes as a result of a $2.1 million reduction to the Wyoming Department of Health’s 2017-18 budget for substance abuse and suicide prevention. The Department of Health complied with this reduction, mandated by the Wyoming Legislature, by reducing the community prevention services contract with the PMO by 47 percent. This mean the expected funding for the 2017-18 fiscal year has dropped from $4.5 million to about $2.4 million.

The consolidation of offices also comes with a change in staff, as Becky Mortimore is no longer the community prevention specialist. Taking her place is Lila Jolley.

Mortimore has been in the prevention field 14 years — 10 years with tobacco prevention, and the past four have seen the addition of prevention regarding alcohol, other drugs and suicide.

Mortimore said the merger of the offices means Jolley will have to provide services to both counties; essentially, there will be a half-time person where there was a full-time.

As to changes in the services PMO provides here, Mortimore said Jolley plans to continue the suicide prevention coalition. The meetings are from noon to 1 p.m. the first Monday of the month, though Mortimore noted lunch will no longer be served at them. There are also meetings the second Wednesday of each month from noon until 1 p.m. addressing abuse prevention for alcohol, tobacco and opioids — such as prescription drugs and heroin — which Jolley intends to keep. Mortimore noted lunch will still be served at the Wednesday meetings.

Though the plan is to continue scheduling these meetings, a location has not been set. Mortimore further explained the budget cuts also mean the only drug abuse issues they can now address are the opioids, whereas they were previously able to also address meth and marijuana abuse.

They can still offer assistance with regard to suicide prevention, Mortimore said, and the coalition she set up wants to continue so it will, and those trained to provide the Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) training to the community can still do so. Mortimore said she still has several booklets for the training as long as there are volunteers to provide the services.

Mortimore is concerned that having one person to serve two counties will be difficult. When she took on tobacco prevention, it was due to a woman in the Washakie County office who wrote the grant for an additional person, because it was too much for her travel between and provide services for the two counties. Mortimore’s hopeful she’s wrong about the challenge of serving two counties, and she’s put out as many supplies as she had here for the services that will still be offered.

Jolley can be contacted at 307-272-5294, or at ljolley@pmowyo.org.