mental health

New York State Website

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced a $5 million expansion of the Community Mental Health Loan Repayment Program to extend eligibility to licensed mental health professionals. Administered by the state Office of Mental Health, the program now has $14 million dedicated to recruiting and retaining skilled mental health professionals at a time when demand for these workers is high and projected to increase…

…Nationally, rising rates of mental illness and substance use disorder have created heightened demand for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, a need that is expected to outpace growth of this area of the workforce. Based on findings from the Center for Health Workforce Studies, New York State is projected to have a shortfall of between roughly 1,180 and 2,650 psychiatrists by 2030.

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Crain’s New York Business 

The state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health are two of the top three worst offenders in overtime usage in 2021, a report from the state comptroller’s office has found.

OPWDD and the mental health office, along with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, account for just 25% of the state workforce but 66% of overtime hours logged by all state agencies in the year, the report, which was released Friday, found. The cost of overtime in 2021 reached an all-time high of more than $924 million and total overtime used rose by more than 800,000 hours. Nearly double the number of workers left agencies as were hired…

…According to the comptroller’s office, most overtime was performed in agencies that have already typically relied on it, such as OPWDD and the Department of Corrections. Jean Moore, the director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the State University of New York at Albany, echoed that turnover rates within agencies have remained consistent with previous years, signaling that an increase in overtime usage isn’t necessarily due to more staff leaving agencies this year than normal…

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