Who botched mental health reform? The sheer size of the state's mental health system spreads responsibility far and wide, and over more than one branch of government. Ultimately, North Carolinians need to point toward solutions, not just point fingers.

That said, Governor Easley has some 'splainin' to do. Especially if the governor really thinks that his administration opposed -- and was then surprised by -- the General Assembly's reform plan of 2001.

Speaking with reporters in December of last year, Easley in effect blamed legislators for the sweeping changes that led to out-of-control privatization of much of the system, and said Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom had "vigorously" opposed them.

A glance back to the General Assembly's 2001 session supports a more nuanced view. Early on, amid an atmosphere of budget-cutting and calls to close Dorothea Dix Hospital and other "institutional" centers in favor of community-based care, Carmen Hooker Buell (her name then) was properly skeptical, saying proposals then being considered were "ludicrous." Legislators apparently were persuaded by her caveats, because by October they'd taken a more substantive approach, and had set up a $47.5 million trust fund to bridge the gap to community-based care.

The reform plan, signed into law by Easley, apparently came with Buell's endorsement. In an N&O opinion piece in November 2001 she wrote that "As DHHS secretary, I've made fixing the mental health system a top priority. For the past few months, we have been doing intensive planning to reform our system. Reform has been attempted many times, but this effort is going to succeed because the time is right."

Hardly the language of vigorous opposition. Nor does it support the notion that the reform plan had come as a surprise.

Following 2001, patients' families and former providers of mental health care -- psychologists and therapists among them -- complained that vital services were being lost as for-profit companies replaced former county-based mental health agencies as front-line providers. Then, when money began to flow toward the "community support" category, the tap opened too wide, to the tune of $50 million a month in spending (for many questionable services) when the state had expected $5 million.

Easley complained in December that the state lacked power to control runaway spending, blaming the private firms. Yet his administration had signed off on the plan and had appointed the administrators who put it into effect.

That implementation was deeply flawed. Surely a governor engaged in this issue has the power and the duty to fix it.