Douglas County lawmakers Friday heard numerous funding requests from agencies trying to provide health care and social services.

“We appreciate the increase in funding” from previous legislative sessions, Sharon Spratt, chief executive of Cottonwood Inc., said, but added, “we are going to be asking you for more.”

Lawrence-based Cottonwood is a nonprofit organization that provides services for people with developmental disabilities.

Spratt’s comments were repeated numerous times in a meeting with legislators before Monday’s start of the 2007 legislative session.

“This is one way of offering folks an opportunity to tell us what they need,” said Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, who presided over the meeting.

Nikki King, executive director of Health Care Access, said the Kansas Department of Health and Environment wasn’t inclined to increase funding after having cut the city’s largest clinic for the uninsured by nearly $40,000 last year.

She said the community has helped keep the clinic going, but that the cut in state funding hurt a lot.

“We’re only serving a tenth of the uninsured population,” she said.

Legislators said they were unhappy with KDHE and planned to investigate the matter during the session.

“What they did was not well thought out at all,” said Rep. Paul Davis, D-Lawrence.

At the time of the decrease, KDHE said it had been instructed by the Legislature to use an increase in grant funds to increase the number of clinics operating in the state. As a result, 11 more clinics were started, but several, including the Lawrence clinic, saw funding cuts.

Lawmakers also said they saw a growing need for more mental health services.

“Our jails are becoming the mental health facilities, and it isn’t supposed to be that way,” Ballard said.

Other lawmakers attending the meeting included Sens. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence and Roger Pine, R-Lawrence; and Reps. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, and Ann Mah, D-Topeka.

Sharon Spratt, Lawrence, addresses Douglas County legislators Paul Davis, Tom Holland, Marci Francisco, Barbara Ballard, Roger Pine, and Ann Mah prior to the opening of the 2007 legislative session. Spratt, CEO of Cottonwood, Inc., an advocacy organization for people with disabilities, took advantage of the opportunity to voice Cottonwoods' concerns for the coming year.

Tanya Dorf, director of Independence Inc. in Lawrence, sought additional funding to take care of Kansans with developmental disabilities who are on waiting lists to get home- and community-based services.

Dorf and others also thanked lawmakers for progress made last year for expanding some services under Medicaid, which is the federal-state program that provides health services for low-income and disabled Kansans.

In addition to funding measures, some policy requests were made.

Bob Mikesic, of Independence Inc., said the organization, along with dozens of others under the Big Tent Coalition, are fighting for several changes.

One of those, he said, would ensure that Medicaid funds follow patients if they leave nursing homes and receive community-based assistance. Another would limit the use of seclusion rooms for special education students.