Sunday, March 15th, Behavioral Health Board

This week, the Behavioral Health Board will hear from the Departmental management on its progress delivering to the County Executive the copy of the FY 26-29 Integrated Plan which the California Department of Health Care Services requires the county to certify, and deliver to it by March 31st.  It was not included in the March 17th Board meeting agenda packet, received by the Board last Friday.  

The next deadline will be the beginning of the required 30-day public comment period preceeding our May 19th board meeting, at which time our Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the Plan.  The date is April 20th, one day before our April Board meeting.   

To date, the Department has insisted that it has conducted stakeholder meeting for the past year.  I have attended many of them, and they have consisted of slideshows of the rules under which the Plan is to be constructed.   A significant component of the presentations has been the difficulty of having to re-allocate 30 percent of the existing (and not expanding) Mental Health Services Fund (known as Prop 63, the Millionnaire's Tax) to Housing Expenses for those seriously mentally ill and severe substance use disorder clients.  Even now, the Department's Draft Integrated Plan (on its website) still doesn't answer that question.  

More importantly, it fails to reveal how the remainder of the Department's estimated $180 million in Behavioral Health funding will be used to meet the seven state-mandated goals contained in it.

I can't speak for any of my colleagues on the Board.  But I feel like a judge at the Olympics who, during 90% of the two-week period has been sitting in the stands listening to explanations of the rules, and has yet to see a competitor.