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Albany: The Civil Service Employees Association and the Mental Health Association of New York State -- two groups that have often disagreed in the past -- are joining forces to combat what they say is chronic neglect of the mentally ill by state government.

"We want to make the mental health services this state needs the No. 1 priority in the next legislative session," CSEA President Danny Donohue said at a joint news conference with MHA officials Thursday. "It is long past time for state workers and non-profit workers to join forces."

"The lions are all lining up on one side," said Joseph Glazer, president of MHA.

CSEA is a labor union for most of the workers in state-run psychiatric centers, and the Mental Health Association represents non-profit organizations that provide housing and outpatient treatment for mentally ill people living in the community.

In recent decades, as the state has followed a policy of deinstitutionalization, the two agencies frequently got into tugs of war over how state spending should be divided between psychiatric centers and the community-based services.

Now that the inpatient population has dwindled to about 8,000, the two groups are joining forces to push for a stronger network in the community. Their new-found solidarity was symbolized Thursday when MHA presented its annual President's Award to Donohue, who started his career in the 1950s as an attendant at the state's Central Islip Psychiatric Center on Long Island.

"We have worked side by side, toiling to assist people with psychiatric disabilities," Glazer said of Donohue. "We have done this in an era when state government has neglected their needs."

Both groups took the opportunity to express outrage that lawmakers trimmed spending on mental health this year at the same time they passed "Kendra's Law," which provides for court-ordered mandatory treatment of some mentally ill people living in the community.

The law was named after Kendra Webdale, a tourist who was pushed to her death in front of a subway in New York City earlier this year, allegedly by a mentally ill man.

"We're actually offended at the political hay that was made over Kendra's Law at the same time they were ending money for services to actually address the law," said Stephen Madaresz, a CSEA spokesman. "It's almost worse than doing nothing."

A spokesman for the state's Office of Mental Health denied that New York is neglecting its mentally ill residents or providing inadequate support in the community.

"Obviously we don't agree with that," spokesman Roger Klingman said. "We now license 2,500 programs around the state. We spend more on mental health than any other state." Klingman said OMH is preparing to transform the mental health system by introducing principles of managed care in a way that should help close remaining gaps in the community-based network.

"The system is one that is evolving," he said. "Is it a perfect system? No. Is it a system that is neglecting people? No…. It's a system that has evolved a long way from where it was 40 years ago."

State government currently budgets $3.4 billion a year for mental health programs, more than any other state, Klingman said. About half that amount pays to provide inpatient care for about 6,000 people in the psychiatric centers, and the other half, combined with additional money from county governments covers outpatient programs, group homes and other community-based programs for the estimated 237,000 New Yorkers with serious mental illness.

Activists at Thursday's news conference said the state needs to put more money into the community, especially to improve salaries for entry-level employees.

The average worker in a group home in the Syracuse area, for example, makes between $15,000 and $17,000, said Alfred Fusco, president of the MHA of Onondaga County. "You get paid more at Wal-Mart than you get paid at a community residence," he said.

As a result, non-profit groups can't hope to recruit the mental health therapy aides represented by CSEA, who generally make more than $20,000 per year.

"Would you take a $3,000 pay cut and give up your state benefits?" Glazer asked.

"This is a sign of a sick society," Donohue said. "The society is judged on how it treats patients that need help."