MANKATO — When Marc Buchanan’s cat got sick, he had a panic attack.

But Marc — and the cat — got quick, effective help from his mental health case manager. The Blue Earth County social worker found a veterinarian who let Buchanan make small payments.

“She can solve problems real quick, oh boy,” said Buchanan, who also suffers from depression.

But the federal funding stream that the county relies on to provide this counseling may be drying up after passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 earlier this month.

Local legislators and county commissioners are imploring the area’s federal delegation to examine sections of the act in an effort to blunt its effects on social services.

Blue Earth County Human Services Director Bob Meyer estimated that the county will lose about $1.7 million in the bill — about 12 percent of his department’s total funding.

And about $1.5 million of that is expected to come from the targeted case management budget, a Medicaid program that allows social workers to provide one-on-one counseling to adults and children with mental disorders.

Blue Earth Commissioners met with three legislators Tuesday morning to show them how the act would cut mental health case management services that the commissioners argued are badly-needed. The lawmakers were also presented with form letters to mail to Congressman Gil Gutknecht and Sen. Norm Coleman, both of whom voted for the act, which was signed into law earlier this month by President George Bush.

Meyer, along with county commissioners, argued that this case management is critical to keeping clients out of the hospitals and jails that are costlier for taxpayers to support.

Meyer said the county has used a concerted strategy to keep clients in the community and out of treatment centers as much as possible.

But the county, along with the state of Minnesota, is paying for that strategy.

In terms of mental health case management, the act has a disproportionate effect on this state.

The nationwide impact is about $220 million, and Meyer estimates that Minnesota is due to pay 55 percent of that amount.

All three local legislators at Tuesday’s meeting said they’d bring their concerns to the federal delegation’s attention.

“How can you not understand that this is a real problem?” said Julie Rosen, a Republican state senator from Fairmont.

And Democratic Representative John Dorn of Mankato suggested that the cuts may have been politically motivated at the federal level.

“Somehow or another, they have targeted something that we are good at,” Dorn said.

Tony Cornish, however, said he was divided.

The Republican from Good Thunder said there’s frustration about the budget deficit, which would rise to $423 billion with the adoption of Bush’s budget.

“No matter where you make the cuts, you’re going to get a reaction from some states or some counties,” Cornish said. “It’s a struggle for me, to balance my conservative roots against my emotions.”

Spokesmen for the area’s elected officials in Washington, D.C., said this issue is on their radar.

A spokesman for Gutknecht said the congressman is still gathering information and awaiting details from several agencies.

An online statement from the congressman reads: “It appears that (the bill) has particularly severe effects on the way we deliver social services in Minnesota.”

And a statement from Coleman said he has concerns regarding the reductions in case management funding and would send a letter to the Medicaid program’s administrator, urging him to broadly interpret the activities that could be billed for the service.

County officials are putting their hope on that re-interpretation. But even if that effort fails, they want to know that every avenue to secure the funding was tried.

Marc Buchanan is hoping they find a way.

“People don’t realize how hard it is (for those with mental illness) to get through the day,” he said.