Block Grants

Federal Set-Asides for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Gao ID: HRD-88-17 October 14, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined: (1) how states determined needs and made decisions on their use of Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health (ADAMH) Services Block Grant funds; and (2) how states implemented the set-aside provisions that targeted female substance abusers and mentally ill children and adolescents.

GAO studied eight states and found that: (1) most states allocated their funds according to historical trends or to maintain existing services; (2) states met the requirement to set aside funds either by expanding existing services or by passing on the responsibility to local or county service providers; (3) most states neither received increased block grant funds nor provided additional funding to service providers; (4) most state officials stated that they would continue these services even without the set-aside requirement; and (5) a majority of recipient interest groups believe that their states' commitments to the services would decrease if Congress eliminated the set-aside.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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