September 3, 2020 — The Board of Supervisors agreed unanimously this week to use Measure B monies to fund a mobile crisis unit that would pair mental health workers with the sheriff’s office, but declined to approve three other proposals until Measure B has a business plan and a plan in place to implement the Kemper Report.
In a separate action, the board also agreed to appoint an ad hoc committee, consisting of Supervisors Ted Williams and John Haschak, to work with the Measure B citizens oversight committee to develop business plan goals, including a psychiatric health facility, or puff unit.
The board’s agenda featured five Measure B-related items, which garnered a letter from one local activist, Que B. Anthony, arguing for sanctioned campsites, and telephone comments from Jan McGourty, who represented the Behavioral Health Advisory Board when she sat on the Measure B committee in its first year.
Williams said the board gave the executive office direction late last year to come up with a business plan, but CEO Carmel Angelo said her office does not have the mental health expertise. She recommended the supervisors’ ad hoc committee or outsourcing the work to a specialist. McGourty said the recommendations and a blueprint for action have been available for years. “There have been comments about how frustrating this is,” she said; “and this is very frustrating to me, because I served on the Behavioral Health Advisory Board for years, and we have recommendations for years that were along these lines that were ignored. And I’m so confused about the need for a business plan, when Lee Kemper laid this out very clearly, two years ago, that was completely ignored, and if you are expecting someone from the outside to come in and help you make a business plan, it’s not going to be him, because he was ignored, so I really have a hard time, figuring out what the problem is here.”
Dr. Jenine Miller, who heads up the county’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, presented the proposal to allocate Measure B funds for four areas:
The mobile crisis unit, which passed with the enthusiastic endorsement of Sheriff Matt Kendall, and the three things that are now on hold. Those are one point three million dollars as seed money for Willow Terrace type housing units on the coast, for mentally ill people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness; follow-up care for psychiatric patients who have been released from hospitals or 5150 holds, regardless of their insurance, and educational and awareness services.
Miller said the current mobile outreach and prevention teams (MOPS) were grant funded, and those grants are ending now. Because the county serves people with Medi-Cal who suffer from severe and persistent mental illnesses, treatment options have to be Medi-Cal billable, which outreach services are not. And she added that MHSA, or the mental health services act, is not filling all the gaps, especially now, with the pandemic. “Covid has made our financial reality even worse,” she told the board. “So mental health took big cuts, and MHSA, I know everyone thinks MHSA can fund the world, every time we look at legislation, they want to have it fund something else...we lost money in MHSA this year because of covid. We’re projected to take 20-25% hit in MHSA over the next three years. So the money that mental health may have had to even consider some things, one, we didn’t have it, and now we really don’t have it.”
McGourty called in again with an example of how mental health funding has shifted around at the state level. Mendocino and Humboldt counties each recently won a competitive grant for $2.5 million from the mental health student services act to provide mental health services through the schools. “I know the department’s really happy to get the grants,” she said. “Because it was a competitive grant...the money for those grants came from MHSA funds. So the money that would have come to the counties from MHSA for prevention and early education, and they made them into competitive grants.”
The board agreed to use $340,000 of Measure B funds per year for four years for the mobile crisis team program, which includes three mental health workers who will accompany law enforcement on high-level crisis calls and document what effect they are having on 5150’s and mental health related transports. Kendall characterized the approach as proactive rather than reactive.
But Miller said the three programs that had been deferred are proactive, too. The board wants to make sure there will be money left in the Measure B account to build a puff, but Miller thinks the money needs to be used for services now, as mental health deteriorates during the pandemic. She said funding the proposals her department made this week, along with representatives from the National Alliance for Mental Illness and the Behavioral Health Advisory Board, will leave the Measure B fund with more than five million dollars in fiscal year 2023-24, when proceeds from the tax are expected to be two million dollars. “I know there’s a lot of talk that we need to be able to fund a puff,” she said. “But I am going to say, if we cannot fund a psychiatric health facility for two million dollars a year, which it should not cost us that, we can’t afford to fund one. So I don’t think not funding these services now is going to impact the puff, now or later...I think we also need to think about the fact that we are in a pandemic. We have a community that is in crisis. We have mental health needs. We have suicide rates that are off the charts, and we have the ability today to bring some services to our community, provide some additional support...and know that we still have $5.2 million sitting there by fiscal year 23/24.”