Authority Grant Funding Request Requested Motion: Approve a ...

146Project DescriptionIn FY09, The Trust funded two Workforce Development projects designed to beginaddressing the critical shortage of psychiatrists in Alaska; the Psychiatric ResidencyDevelopment initiative and the Psychiatric Elective Rotations program. The idea hasbeen to “capture” psychiatric residents as they complete their training, retaining themin State as part of the behavioral health continuum of care providers.As efforts to develop the residency continued in FY10 and FY11, the PsychiatricElective Rotation program was meant to complement the progress being made bybringing psychiatrists in training to Alaska; marketing the unique training and practiceopportunities for psychiatrists in Alaska, as well as bringing psychiatric professionalsto the state to provide beneficiary care.Unfortunately, the Psychiatric Residency Development project was not successfullyincluded in the State’s FY2012 budget, and the Psychiatric Residency was not ableto be to be implemented. We had not anticipated the need to continue the PsychiatricElective Rotation program at the current level needed to maintain our progress, andtherefore did not budget accordingly.RequestThe total project cost for the Psychiatric Elective rotation program for FY12 & FY13 is$341,300. In FY12 there is currently $68,000 approved in the Workforce Focus Areafor psychiatric training, leaving a gap in required funding for the program of $273,300.In order to bridge the gap in funding, we are requesting the allocation of unobligatedand unspent Workforce Development Authority Grant funds in the amount of$273,300 for the purpose of continued coordination of the psychiatric electiverotations for FY12 & FY13.Specifically, we propose to allocate the total project cost of $341,300 in the followingmanner: FY12 $166,000 and FY13 $175,300.This funding will allow the Psychiatric Elective rotations to be managed in conjunctionwith efforts to create the Alaska Psychiatric Residency. Four psychiatric residentseach fiscal year are being recruited to complete part of their training in Alaska.Residents will likely be from the University of Washington, School of Medicine andthe University of New Mexico, School of Medicine.The residents will be in their thirdor fourth year of training.