Mental Health Redesign

The bipartisan, bicameral interim committee reviewing the MH/DS redesign proposals met again this Thursday morning. Bob Lincoln, County Support Services (CSS) CPC, and Holly Fokkena, Butler County Auditor, presented to the committee on how the blended funding has worked in the CSS region of five counties. Butler County is the fiscal agent for CSS. The AG’s office presented comment on the residency definition in the proposed bill. Co-chair, Representative Renee Schulte (R-Linn) asked the committee to vote out two bills, one regarding the commitment process (click here for a bill draft) and one making language changes from mental retardation to intellectual disability in the Code (click here for a bill draft). These bills will be introduced next week and will be assigned bill numbers.  The third bill, the redesign policy bill (click here for a bill draft), will continue to be a work in progress. Senator Joe Bolkcom (D-Johnson) raised the issue of the counties’ property tax authority, which currently sunsets on June 30, 2013. In response, Representative Schulte said that they intend to work on the financing of the system before finalizing the redesign bill for introduction.  Other areas to be addressed before the bill is finalized include the definitions of subacute and crisis stabilization, fine tuning residency as the basis for funding services and the provision of core services in the transition period.  The interim committee intends to have one more Thursday morning meeting and then dissolve. 

 

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