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Mental health board OKs $10.9M budget
With additional levy revenue, services will be expanded in schools
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board unanimously approved a $10.9 million 2020 budget.
Officials said they’re expecting that budget could later include more state or regional allocations that have yet to be confirmed, as passage of the Ohio state budget just happened Friday.
The board Monday evening awarded $9.6 million of that budget to 43 area providers that partner with the board, the top three being Compass Family and Community Services, which will receive about $3.7 million; Meridian HealthCare, $1.4 million; and Help Network of Northeast Ohio, $1.3 million.
With increased levy funding, the board is able to increase school-based mental health services, including 534 more mental health service hours in local schools and 203 more service hours for suicide prevention workers, said Duane Piccirilli, board executive director. The board can now offer those services at schools that didn’t receive them last year, including Youngstown’s ACLD School and Learning Center, East High School and Kirkmere and Paul C. Bunn elementaries, he said.
“Any prevention-type work is important,” said Brenda Heidinger, board associate director. “It allows us to reach children at a younger age in the schools. It allows us to help them better cope with life as it comes – hopefully catch them before they fall into any of those traps that we sometimes see in the media around suicides [during] those teenage years, which are tough enough to navigate with a good, solid background.”
A new Meridian HealthCare-employed prevention educator also will be embedded this fall at Youngstown State University through 2020 board funding, said Meridian CEO Larry Moliterno. That full-time worker will implement chemical abuse, dependency and mental health programs – such as sober tailgating parties – and participate in prevention planning at the university and connect students with services.
In April, the board expects to get up to half of the new board taxes voters approved in November, increasing the board’s budgeted levy revenues from $4.1 million in the 2019 fiscal year to $4.5 million. That November ballot measure combined the board’s existing 0.85-mill levy with its other half-mill levy into one levy. The board chose to let that half-mill levy expire upon passage of the new levy.
The about $750,000 in overlapping revenue it’s expected to raise in 2019 and 2020 will create a one-time, competitive grant program to fund infrastructure projects for agencies that serve the board, Piccirilli said. He said the board will seek requests for proposals from those agencies early next year.
“Some of the agencies have started projects now using their own reserves. We’re looking at roofs, furniture, brick-and-mortar things,” Piccirilli told the board.
Mark Dunlap, board finance director, said state allocations for many board-administered programs are still unknown, as the state budget was only passed Friday. Should more funding be confirmed – he’s expecting by the end of August – the board’s budget would be adjusted at a September board meeting.
Under the state’s biennium budget bill, state funding for specialized docket programs – such as Mahoning Judge John Durkin’s drug court or Judge Anthony D’Apolito’s veterans court – will receive an additional $5 million by 2021. Gov. Mike DeWine in March also called for the creation of 30 new docket programs in the state.
“We’re very hopeful at least one will come to Mahoning County,” Piccirilli said, adding Youngstown Municipal Court is eyeing its own drug court.
Two other “big pots of money” are regionally administered funding for a regional crisis unit and detox services through Mercy Health. Last year, Mahoning County received about $900,000 between the two, but this year’s funding destinations have yet to be chosen, Piccirilli said.
The board pulled about $478,000 from its unallocated reserve funding to balance the 2020 budget, putting its remaining reserves at about $300,000, Dunlap said. The board allocated about $715,000 from reserves to balance last year’s budget.