I just got to my hotel room in San Francisco after a day in Kern County speaking to the Kern and Tulare County chapters of NAMI. It was a pleasure to connect with the members of these chapters, and it was particularly educational to me to hear their questions, of which they had many as to how Prop. 63 will work. I'll answer those questions for everyone over the next week or two, but there's one that I want to take up today.
People were curious as to how the revenue collected pursuant to Prop. 63 will be distributed. As you may know, the mental health money allocated to counties pursuant to "realignment" is allocated based on a percentage formula, with each county getting a specific percentage of the sales tax and vehicle license fees that are collected by the state and allocated to mental health. Not so with the Prop. 63 money.
Under Prop. 63, counties may present plans to the State Department of Mental Health, who is responsible for administering the program. Money from Prop. 63 will be allocated to counties based on plans they present--plans that show that the counties are prepared to offer the type of integrated services to be funded under Prop. 63. There's no percentage formula for allocation of funds.
To quote the Consumers' representative I discussed on the blog a few weeks ago, services under Prop. 63 won't be "same old, same old." We're focusing on prevention services, early intervention services, innovative programs, and integrated services.
I encourage county folks to contact Rusty Selix with any questions about this so they can be ready to go in November.
More tomorrow!
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