Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's budget reductions announced Thursday include reductions of more than $86.6 million to mental health, health and human resources agencies.

These are the agencies that make sure people with serious mental illness get treatment, that waters where seafood is harvested are routinely tested for contaminants so consumers don't get sick, that families get the child support due them, among many other things.

"Folks can sometimes forget and think about the budget as just a series of numbers on a piece of paper," said Michael Cassidy, executive director of The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a nonprofit agency in Richmond.

"They forget the ways in which those services that government provide in terms of health and safety inspections, in terms of certifying medical professionals . . . the ways in which we depend on all of those in our everyday lives [are] going to be impacted by these [reductions]," Cassidy said.

The budget proposal cuts $12 million from community services boards, agencies that provide mental health and substance abuse counseling.

"With these size cuts there is no way to hold anything sacred," said Mary Ann Bergeron, executive director of the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards.

The reductions mean some open jobs will not be filled. Plans by the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority to hire for 11 positions are being curtailed.

The agency is advertising for a crisis-intervention expert, youth and adult case managers, a therapist to do in-home counseling with children, substance abuse and HIV counselors and a chief medical officer, along with several key administrative jobs.

"We are trying to make sure we protect those critical clinical services that are necessary for the community," said Wilson J. Washington Jr., executive director of the Richmond agency.

At the Mount Rogers Community Services Board, which serves areas in Southwest Virginia, Executive Director Lisa Moore said while direct services to clients will not be cut, the administrative reductions are bound to have some impact.

In addition, cuts to sister agencies, such as the state Department of Rehabilitative Services, will affect the community services boards whose clients turn to the rehabilitation agency for help finding jobs, Moore said.

The Virginia Department of Health's more than $14 million in cuts include everything from $4,500 for monkey tuberculosis testing and similar-size cuts for a number of free clinics to sizable cuts in programs that work on preventing teen pregnancy, asthma attacks and heart disease.

"You have a series of cuts laid out by the Health Department which are essentially a number of free clinics and safety-net providers," said Cassidy, whose institute focuses on the impact of policy decisions on low-and moderate-income families.

"Those are the types of things that are very significant in terms of the impact on children and families," Cassidy said. "When you think about the low levels of effort that Virginia already puts into our safety net, it is already a taxed system. For example, in the area of Medicaid, we have strict Medicaid eligibility requirements and we pay providers less than other states."

The state Health Department cuts include eliminating federally funded programs in cancer prevention and improving health of people with disabilities. The programs don't require a state match but were cut to reduce staff.

"None of these grants were about to expire," said Dr. David Suttle, director of the Office of Family Health Services. "That would have been relatively easy. Health promotions for people with disabilities is a five-year grant we just started the first year of."

Suttle said he is not sure whether the Health Department will have to return the federal grant money or if it can shift the grant leadership to another agency.

Also taking a hit at the Health Department is environmental services. An environmental engineer and an environmental health specialist whose job was to collect water samples where shellfish are harvested are being laid off.

"They do surveys around those waters to identify contaminants and pollution," said Robert W. Hicks, director of the Office of Environmental Health Services. "Another major thing is they certify the people who handle the shellfish, the pasteurizers, the packers of crabmeat and other shellfish products."

Without the inspection program, shellfish dealers cannot sell their catches across state lines, Hicks said.

Those assessments will take place less often. In addition, areas closed to harvesting because of problems identified from past assessments may wait longer to be reassessed to see if they can reopen, he said.

Some advocates were relieved that the cuts spared some programs -- this time.

"It looks to me like the governor and his administration in their proposed cuts bent over backward to make sure kids in particular aren't hurt by these cuts," said John Morgan, executive director of Voices for Virginia's Children.

In particular, said Morgan, funding remains for expanding the Virginia Preschool Initiative.

"We hope the General Assembly supports that as well. We consider that the single best investment for getting kids ready for school," Morgan said.