Maryland mental health providers say proposed state budget cuts to the 988 suicide prevention line and school-based behavioral services will worsen current issues.
At a rally Tuesday in Annapolis, advocates urged Maryland lawmakers to restore the $116 million excluded from Governor Wes Moore’s 2026 budget, especially as youth needs grow. According to the state’s most recent youth behavior survey, almost 30% of high schoolers feel persistently sad or hopeless — and one in five middle schoolers have made a suicide plan.
“But even if the compassion argument is not compelling to you, there's an important fiscal argument here in that these cuts do not save us money,” said Jessica Feldman, state delegate for Howard County. “They end up costing us more in emergency room expenses. They end up costing us more in law enforcement expenses. They end up costing us more with more involved prolonged treatment, if people can't get the help they need at the right time.”
Gus Hughes, who works with Baltimore’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he used the 988 crisis line last May while homeless and without key resources.
“I couldn't get my meds refilled, I couldn't see my therapist, and because of that, I ended up turning to 988, and that genuinely saved my life,” Hughes said at Tuesday’s rally.
A Maryland counselor picked up in under a minute, Hughes added, connecting him with resources specifically for LGBTQ+ youth.
“Without that counselor being there to talk me out of the crisis I was in, and also forward resources that were local to me, to help me find shelter, to find a therapist…I probably wouldn't be here,” he said.
Moore’s proposed budget currently doesn’t include $25 million expected by workers at Maryland’s eight 988 centers, due to a funding bill passed by lawmakers last year.
Michelle Grigsby-Hackett is the CEO of Affiliated Sante Group, one of the organizations leading a 988 center. She said not receiving that funding will cause her office to lose highly-trained counselors on staff.
“The calls will go unanswered or have significant delays being answered,” Grigsby-Hackett said. “Emergency departments that already have the highest wait times in the nation will continue to be overwhelmed, and Marylanders will begin turning to 911 to get help for their mental health crisis.”
Grigsby-Hackett said calls to 988 centers like hers have increased by 30% in the last year, and text messages to the service have nearly doubled. That makes the prospect of fewer resources even more daunting, she said.
The governor’s proposed budget also cuts $90 million from the Consortium on Coordinated Community Supports, which advocates said has provided in-school behavioral health services to around 58,000 students in the past six months.
The proposed change reduces funding for these school programs from $130 million to $40 million for every year through 2030.
“Advocates have been working for decades to get funding needed to help put these services in schools for our children,” said Adrienne Breidenstine, vice president of policy and communications for Behavioral Health System Baltimore. “There will be no place for them to turn for help.”
