A program aimed at training social workers to deal with the mentally ill is the latest casualty in a push to reduce state spending on mental health programs amid the budget crunch.

The social work program, which cost the state about $400,000 a year and trained some 15 social workers annually, is one of several cuts the state Adult Mental Health Division is making to avert a budget shortfall this fiscal year and reduce spending for next fiscal year in anticipation of less money.

The most glaring scalebacks were made in January, when reimbursable case management hours for clients were cut from three hours a day to 3 1/2 hours a month. But the state also has been trimming away at contracts to cut costs and this month terminated the program at the University of Hawai'i that trains social workers for mental health careers. The program started in 1991, and employs three specialists.

Paula Morelli, chairwoman of the mental health concentration at the University of Hawai'i School of Social Work, which operates the training program for social workers, said the termination of the contract is a blow. She said the program trains social workers on O'ahu and the Neighbor Islands to work with those suffering from severe mental illnesses. Students who participate get stipends of about $6,000 a year.

The state's contract for the program will end on June 30.

Morelli said she is disappointed that the state cut the program entirely, instead of just reducing it.

"We just feel like, 'Come on, let's make this work together,' " she said.

Recently released state Department of Health documents highlight other cuts to mental health services, including the discontinuation of two transportation programs for the mentally ill on the Big Island and reductions to housing vouchers for mental health clients. The state Adult Mental Health Division also says it will stop paying for the care of a Kaua'i woman "with behavioral health and medical problems."

From April 2004 to this month, the state spent $472,377 for the woman to get care at Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital. She has no identification and apparently can't remember who she is. But in a letter to the medical center, state Health Department Director Chiyome Fukino said the woman does "not have a medical diagnosis that would qualify her for AMHD services and ... has been stabilized."

Fukino said AMHD would stop paying for her treatment last week.

She suggested the woman get services through Medicaid or Medicare instead.

In letters to lawmakers and the governor, the Department of Health also outlined some of its other cutbacks, which include the termination of 36 rental subsidies for mental health consumers. The vouchers went unused, and the reductions have not caused anyone to be displaced. The state also cut a $147,000 annual contract for bus transportation for the mentally ill on the Big Island, and a $160,000 contract that trains mental health clients as "taxi drivers," so they can then transport others with mental illnesses as part of a free taxi service. Both Big Island programs will be terminated effective June 30.

Mental health advocates and organizations that serve the mentally ill say the cuts are likely only the beginning.

But Michelle Hill, acting director of AMHD, said in a statement to The Advertiser that "the overriding fiscal situation demands that we make difficult decisions. Each decision has been evaluated by looking at the fiscal, clinical and 'value to AMHD' perspectives. AMHD will continue to evaluate its ... service array."