NATCHEZ — A gubernatorial veto earlier this month has cut funding to the Southwest Mississippi Health Complex and 14 other such facilities across the state.

Now facility administrators and local officials are left wondering how the ramifications from those cuts will manifest.

Southwest Mississippi Mental Health Complex Executive Director Dr. Steve Ellis said it could be a little as one month before a $7 million veto, in the form of a line item from Senate Bill 2046, and a lack of budgeted Medicaid funding for 2010 could result in cuts of staff and service at the 15 facilities across the state.

Residents from Adams County and nine other surrounding counties are all serviced by the mental health complex in McComb, which offers a full range of mental health services.

“We need that funding,” Ellis said of all the facilities. “We can’t keep operating normally without it.”

Ellis said Gov. Haley Barbour’s veto cut a line item in a bill that allocated $7 million in funding that would have been allocated to a Medicaid match for the centers.

Additionally, as the 2010 budget is currently written, there is no match funding for any of the facilities that would allow the centers to get the Medicaid dollars they need to run.

Locally, county and law enforcement officials are concerned the lack of funding will have a negative impact in Adams County.

“There are a great number of people that rely on mental health services,” Adams County Supervisor Darryl Grennell said. “This state and this county cannot afford any kind of cut in those services.”

Grennell said he is concerned the lack of funding will result in those in need of mental health simply not being able to receive any help at all.

“And that’s something we just can’t have,” he said. “Help has to be available when people need it.”

And Adams County Sheriff Angie Brown said when residents in need of mental health don’t have access to assistance, they often end up in the county jail.

Brown said this scenario is mostly seen with those in need of mental health and who have a tendency for violence.

“If they’re violent, and there’s no place for them to get treatment, they end up in the county jail,” Brown said. “And they do not belong in jail, they need help. The staff is not trained to help them and the facility is not equipped to hold them.”

Tuesday the Adams County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that will send a resolution in Jackson asking Barbour to consider the matter at this week’s special session.

Sen. Bob Dearing said he will be at the special session in an attempt to have the matter brought up for consideration.

“We have to have funding for this, we can’t just ignore it,” Dearing said.