City budget plan leaves out mental health care providers

Area mental health care providers have found themselves caught in the fallout of a funding dispute between the City of Chattanooga and Hamilton County, after the city revealed their budget proposal for fiscal year 2012.

The $201 million budget proposal, which called for a $16.1 increase in funding from the current financial plan, failed to grant annual funds requested by local agencies that provide services to residents with mental illnesses.

Among the agencies not granted taxpayer funded appropriations were the AIM Center, which requested $59,213, the Johnson Mental Health Center, which requested $60,156, and the Fortwood Center, which requested $208,075.

Bonnie Currey, president of the AIM Center, said that her organization feels like a football being tossed back and forth between two government entities.

"I'm absolutely appalled that neither the city or the county is going to be helping fund mental health services," Currey said. "We've talked with both the county and the city, and we've attended their meetings. So this was quite a surprise."

Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger, whose office is currently in the process of drafting its budget for next year, recently wrote a letter advising the once jointly-funded agencies to apply for funding from the city in light of the termination of the 45-year-old sales tax agreement.

But the city government, which now faces up to a 2 percent sales tax commission payable to Hamilton County for revenues distributed back into Chattanooga, said that it will no longer be able to fund agencies once subsidized by the agreement.

Richard Beeland, media relations director for Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield, said that the cost of paying the commission would place responsibility on to the county, which has traditionally handled the funding requests of the agencies.

"We had planned to fund these agencies, but if the county is going to charge the city 2 percent for a simple transfer of funds, then we expect them to fund those agencies," Beeland said. "It's an unreasonable amount of money that they need for a simple electronic transfer of funds."

But despite the increased revenue from the impending tax commission, Hamilton County officials expressed no change in their intention to not be the provider of requested funds. 

Louis Wright, administrator of finance for Hamilton County, said that even though agencies like the AIM Center had made repeated requests to submit funding proposals for the coming year, that county officials had declined to hear them because they would be unable to provide funding due to a lack of money.

"We do not plan to recommend funding for any sales tax agencies, because we've got a $5 million shortfall we're facing," Wright said. "Any requests put forth by these agencies weren't granted because we don't have the money. The money has gone to the city, and they're going to have to request it from them."

After making budget requests to the city, Donna Maddox, director of the Johnson Mental Health Center, said she was shocked to find out her organization had been left out of the proposed budget. Recently, the Johnson Center has used their public funds to support a criminal justice program which exists to manage cases of mentally ill persons who are coming out of incarceration.

"This is disconcerting news, it's hard to understand, and it's hard to accept," Maddox said. "Funding our program would have served the citizens of Chattanooga and Hamilton County. Our program has had great results, and exceeded its benchmarks. It takes a lot for a person to come out of incarceration and change their life."

Stating her belief that the criminal justice program would have a lower long-run cost than the combined costs of mentally ill people to be sent to jails, emergency rooms, and institutions like Moccasin Bend, Maddox said that city and county leaders should focus on spending their monies more responsibly.

"I have a deep understanding for the financial situation that we are all in, but if mental health services don't get funded, it will be a step backwards," she said. "We've worked hard to get to the place where we are now, and I hope that this proposed budget isn't the final discussion."

During an unrelated gun violence summit on Wednesday morning at UTC, Littlefield seemed to agree with Maddox's opinion.

When asked what he thought regarding the impact of reduced dollars to local mental health care providers would be, Littlefield said that he thought problems on Chattanooga's streets would increase.

"If we keep reducing funding for mental health functions and associations and agencies, then the problem is going to get worse," Littlefield said. "That's part of the discussion that we're having between the county and the city about who is responsible for what. But it's a complicated situation."

With Chattanooga's City Council set to carefully review the budget before the beginning of hearings on May 31, there still may be a chance for mental health care providers to have funding written back into the plan. 

"Ultimately, it will be the council that decides what happens," Beeland said. "But if they want to find almost a million dollars to fund mental health programs, they're going to have to find a million dollars somewhere else to cut."