EDITORIAL: Mental Health agency faces budget crisis

May 19--You may very well be faced with answering that question at the voting booth in the near future.

Ottawa County Community Mental Health is in a budget crisis, and it may only get worse. Agency officials have hinted at the possibility of putting a millage issue before county voters to make up the difference.

Community Mental Health is a public provider of services for people with developmental disabilities and/or serious mental illness, according to the county website. Its services and programs are available to Ottawa County residents who have Medicaid or are uninsured, and who are eligible for services as defined by the Michigan Mental Health Code.

The agency is looking at a $2 million shortfall in its $38 million budget, says its executive director, Lynne Doyle.

Doyle says the new Healthy Michigan program has effectively cut dollars the agency received from the state in half. CMH received $3.4 million last year, and will only be seeing about $1.4 million for 2015.

There was also a change to the Medicaid funding that's provided to the mental health agency.

"Ottawa County Community Mental Health was asked to regionalize with five other CMHs," Doyle explained to Tribune reporter Alex Doty for a recent story. "When we first became partners in this new region, the Michigan Department of Community Health divided up Medicaid on a new formula."

As a result, the region saw a $10 million decline in funding, meaning fewer dollars to go around for the partner organizations.

"That all adds up to the $2 million this year," Doyle said of the cuts to Ottawa County.

And funding could get even more challenging next year, Doyle says. She anticipates the agency could see cuts totaling between $6 million and $7 million.

Of course, the reduced funding has had an impact on the how the agency operates, and its ability to help its clients.

We are pleased to hear that the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners have made Community Mental Health's funding crisis one of its priorities, according to Commissioner Roger Bergman of Grand Haven.

As Bergman points out, not assisting people with mental health issues often leads those unhelped clients to commit crimes, which lands them in jail and possibly an even-larger burden on taxpayers. He rightly says it's time to get state and federal lawmakers to understand the correlation and encourage them to put money into mental health programs.

An August 2014 survey of Ottawa County residents found 63 percent of respondents would support a new 0.3-mill tax to support Community Mental Health. Whether that moves forward, and the specifics of the proposed millage, has yet to be determined.

We encourage lawmakers to properly fund Community Mental Health. If they drop the ball, then a millage to fill the funding gap may indeed be the necessary next step.

Our Views reflects the majority opinion of the members of the Grand Haven Tribune editorial board: Kevin Hook, Matt DeYoung, Alex Doty and Mark Brooky. What do you think? E-mail us a letter to the editor to news@grandhaventribune.com or log-in to our website and leave a comment below.

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