Governor Timothy Kaine has signed a series of bills designed to improve treatment of people with mental illness following the Virginia Tech shootings.

The new laws, which go into effect in July, are meant to improve oversight and accountability of a mental health system harshly criticized after mentally disturbed student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.

“It has been a difficult year, but it has been a year where people haven’t shrunk from trying to learn and improve. The Tech tragedy reminded us…we have a significant need to improve mental health services. Working with members of the General Assembly, we will make significant investments in our mental health system and the bills before me today will establish standards for the system and increase accountability,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said at the bill-signing ceremony, as quoted by the Associated Press.

The bills expand the criteria under which a mentally ill person can be barred from buying guns, require mental health officials to more closely monitor people in community-based treatment and allow the sharing of information among providers and court officials to keep track of people in treatment.

Under the current bills, universities are required to develop written emergency management plans and establish threat-assessment teams. Moreover, they must establish comprehensive emergency notification systems by January 1, 2009.

The reforms are accompanied by a $42 million spending boost for more caseworkers, psychiatrists and other staff to treat and monitor the mentally ill passed last month in the assembly’s two-year budget.

“It's a terrible shame that it took something as terrible as Virginia Tech and the incident there to bring to light so many inadequacies in the mental health system. I'm sure many people were crying out about these for a long time, and it didn't get the spotlight that it deserved,” Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin was shot four times by Cho but survived said about the bills.