As voters prepare to decide the fate of Proposition 1 — which could bring big changes to mental health funding in California — some L.A. County authorities worry the measure would pull money away from existing services, like the teams of health professionals who respond to crisis situations instead of police.
In a letter to the board of supervisors earlier this week, the Los Angeles County CEO’s Office acknowledged the potential benefits of Prop. 1 if it passes, including funding for more treatment beds — the lack of which is a perennial problem.
But the letter also points to a couple of challenges. One, it says, is that Prop. 1 could limit local control of money from a key source: the Mental Health Services Act, also known as the “Millionaire Tax.”
The CEO’s office said shifting that revenue away from mental health services would affect several services offered by the county Department of Mental Health, including the psychiatric mobile response teams and other parts of its crisis care system.
The letter reads, in part: “The provisions of Proposition 1 that restrict the County’s flexibility and local control over one of its biggest and most flexible funding streams … would make it more difficult for the County to continue meeting both the mental health needs of the rest of the County’s residents and the State mandated requirements to ensure access to care.”
‘Of course it’s a concern’
State and local authorities, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have said Prop. 1 would constitute the first major change in California’s approach to mental health in decades. It would create more than $6 billion in bonds to fund…
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