Monday, June 22, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Mental Health & Recovery Board has begun its first levy campaign since the county’s mental health and alcohol and drug addiction services boards merged Feb. 23.
The decades-old 0.5-mill, five-year renewal mental health levy, which generates an estimated $915,489 a year, was recently placed on the Nov. 3 election by Mahoning County commissioners.
An Ohio Attorney General’s Office opinion says the levy may be used for both mental-health and substance-abuse recovery services because “recovery is a subset of mental health,” Duane J. Piccirilli, Mental Health and Recovery Board executive director, told commissioners.
First passed as a mental health levy in 1976, it costs the owner of a $100,000 home about $5.56 a year.
Piccirilli said he and Toni Notaro, compliance and evaluation director for the combined board, will lead the campaign, with assistance from staff and board members, to inform the public that mental health and addiction recovery are often related and can be treated.
Read MORE in Tuesday's Vindicator.