Lynda Waddington: County leaders to lawmakers on mental health: We can do better
GazetteMar 18, 2019
Reforms of mental health services approved last year included critical access centers for people in crisis, a statewide crisis hotline, removal of residency caps and improved community-based care to spur more comprehensive treatment options for those with persistent illnesses. Some counties within the state's 14 mental health regions, like Linn, are positioned to move forward on at least some of these goals. Others, however, continue to have difficulty providing basic services that state law already required.
Adding to the complications at the
Gov.
The current adult system is funded largely through local property taxes, capped by the Legislature. Some regions also are hindered by caps placed on the amount of funding that can be carried forward to the next year. County leaders, some of whom face mandates that exceed levy capacities, converged in
A video featuring various county and regional officials, as well as parents to a young man who took his own life in 2017, ending a long-term battle with mental illness, recently was released by county leaders.
"It quickly became evident that he needed longer term help if he were to recover from his illness, and there simply wasn't any," says
Majority
Removal of property taxes as the primary funding for mental health services, however, would require taxpayer investment from another funding stream, such as sales tax revenue.
One possibility being debated at the
Others wonder whether backfill funding, used to offset cuts in commercial and multifamily residential property tax enacted by the Legislature in 2013, could be earmarked for mental health services or otherwise eliminated and the money used to create a new state funding stream. Doing that, however, could prompt already cash-strapped county and municipal leaders to further increase property taxes to recoup at least a portion of the difference.
While researching needs and creating mental health frameworks isn't necessarily an easy task, such recommendations are far more palatable to the public than generating the funding to provide them. Bills enacting such a framework, likewise, are easier political lifts than those that provide the investment needed to make them a reality -- especially for lawmakers who appear to be stuck in a never-ending campaign cycle.
But, as county officials reminded us all this week, we can and must do better. The state's current path on mental illness, which relies largely on expensive and overpopulated jail cells and emergency rooms, is unsustainable.
If we truly believe in a basic set of minimum services as our laws require, or that all
--Comments: @LyndaIowa, (319) 368-8513, lynda.waddington@thegazette.com
___
(c)2019 The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Visit The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) at thegazette.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.