Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Monday, May 20 @ 4:42 p.m. / Community, Health
Behavioral Health Director Weighs In On Prop 1's Potential Implications for Del Norte
Previously:
###
Six weeks after California voters agreed that the 2004 Mental Health Services Act needed updating, local behavioral health officials are still figuring out what that means for Del Norte County.
Proposition 1 will likely impact Del Norte’s prevention and early intervention program, causing the Behavioral Health Branch to figure out new ways of delivering those services, Director Shiann Hogan told the Wild Rivers Outpost.
She said she will ask county supervisors to approve a Mental Health Services Act coordinator who could spearhead those changes.
Hogan said she’d also like to develop a stakeholder group that would help restructure the branch’s programs. This might include coordinating with Del Norte County Unified School District or the county probation department’s new Youth Opportunity Center, she said.
Hogan added that her office is also trying to figure out if there will be exceptions to small counties like Del Norte.
“Prop 1 goes into effect in July 2026 so that gives us a fiscal year to really start thinking through all those impacts,” she said. “I think we’re still learning about the small county exceptions that exist and what this will do to our bottomline dollar.”
Hogan said she’s still speaking with behavioral health advocacy groups like the County Behavioral Health Directors Association, but wants to give an update to the Board of Supervisors and the community about Proposition 1.
Hogan went before county supervisors on Feb. 13 to talk about the statewide measure. At that meeting, even though Prop 1 included a $6.4 billion bond, the funding mechanism for the MHSA wouldn’t change. This means that even though Del Norte County would be expected to expand its scope of services, it likely wouldn’t see additional revenue.
She said it might also result in less funding, which could lead to the need to cancel contracts and close current programs.
“The biggest concern I see is the local aspect of our discretion to decide what our community needs,” Hogan told supervisors at that meeting. “This would be vastly impacted and cause a reduction in overall services.”
Narrowly approved by voters in March, Proposition 1 instituted a bond to create treatment beds for those struggling with mental illness and substance abuse disorders. Bond dollars were also slated to provide housing for those who are at homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Last week, Newsom announced that counties could begin applying for $3.3 billion in Prop 1 dollars in July, the SF Examiner reported.
The Del Norte County Behavioral Health Branch sees between 750 and 850 unique clients per month, Hogan said. This doesn’t include clients that take advantage of the county’s Prevention and Early Intervention Programs, which are varied — Hogan said the Del Norte County Recreation Department uses PEIP dollars for its youth basketball program, which serves roughly 700 kids.
Other PEIP programs include Coastal Connections, which serves youth and young adults and provides help with job search and referrals to community resources such as food stamps Medi-Cal and cash assistance. Coastal Connections also offers a study room, snacks and kitchen youse and meeting spaces.
Hogan said some of the questions she and her Behavioral Health colleagues in Del Norte are hoping to get answered is how it can use the Prop 1 bond money. This includes whether or not Del Norte County could apply for those dollars independently or if it would be better working with other small counties as part of a regional partnership.
There’s also fiscal analyses that go along with that funding and figuring out how the county can get the most bang for its buck, Hogan said.
“With the Youth Opportunity Center, is there a way to embed some of our programs into that center as a support to probation?” She asked as an example.
Lonnie Reyman, Del Norte’s chief of probation is doing strategic planning around the Youth Opportunity Center, which was created in September when the Board of Supervisors eliminated the county’s juvenile detention center. Proposition 64 dollars may also be associated with the Youth Opportunity Center, Hogan said.
Hogan said she also plans to partner with District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey to have a luncheon discussion with other agencies and organizations providing mental health support services and programs for youth to determine who’s doing what and what partnerships might be available.
For a program like Coastal Connections, which houses a plethora of services for youth under one roof, Proposition 1 may make it necessary for that program to be restructured, Hogan said.
“It would be looking at all the specific programs in there and [determining] which ones will remain and meet the new funding guidelines and which ones will evolve or if we can collaborate with community partners like the school district or probation or other people who youth-related services in Del Norte County,” she said. “Is there a way to take the foundational elements from those programs and enhance them so we can still provide services to transitional-age youth.”
Apart from Proposition 1’s bond, the MHSA is still funded through a 1 percent tax on personal income over $1 million. Del Norte County will still be working with the same amount of funding, but the reporting requirements will change and services may need to be expanded, Hogan said.
Plus, she added, the Behavioral Health Branch, like many county departments is short on staff. New positions have been created to staff the county’s mobile crisis response team and Behavioral Health Bridge Housing Program, which addresses housing needs for those experiencing homelessness.
CARE Court “is also right around the corner for us too,” Hogan said.
“There’s still a lot of uncertainty in some aspects around what we need for staffing with so many new initiatives,” she said. “We’re looking at expanded ways to do some recruitment. For instance, like our clinician positions, we’ve recently partnered into a way to do more social media campaigning around those positions and I would say also internally what we have been doing is we’re offering loan forgiveness programs to our staff.”
The Behavioral Health Branch can also offer recruitment and retention bonuses — something it has to work out with Del Norte County’s bargaining units and that needs approval from county supervisors, Hogan said.
Meanwhile, Del Norte County’s in the process of updating its Mental Health Services Act plan for fiscal year 2024-25. That plan is out for public comment currently and mentions the need for workforce development and training, according to Hogan.
Public comment on the MHSA annual update will be available through Saturday. A public hearing is scheduled for noon-1 p.m. June 3 at 880 Northcrest Drive or via Zoom. For more information, click here.
CLICK TO MANAGE