County Mental Care Chief Resigns, Criticizes Funding

Los Angeles County Mental Health Director Roberto Quiroz is leaving his post June 1 with a sense of “frustration” over efforts to save a system stricken by inadequate state funding, he said Wednesday.

In a letter of resignation to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Quiroz, 53, expressed disappointment at the lack of state funds for meeting an ever-increasing local demand for mental health services.

“I think there’s just so many years one can deal with funding constraints,” Quiroz told The Times. “I feel what is needed is the infusion of state funding to develop a viable mental health system. . . .”

Quiroz has served as mental health director for six years. He was one of several general managers and department heads to get pay increases earlier this year as part of a county incentive program. His salary was increased to $105,000 a year, a 3% hike.

“I have done as much as I can during my tenure,” Quiroz said. “I now feel that it is perhaps time for new leadership. I’m satisfied that we have given it our best shot. . . . It’s been very, very difficult.”

Quiroz noted that in each of the past four years his department has come before the supervisors with a deficit budget requiring funds to avert cuts in services.

In the process, Quiroz has felt the heat from the supervisors as they struggled to cope with millions of dollars in threatened program cuts. In a series of reports, he advised the supervisors what would happen if they did not come up with adequate mental health funding. In December, the board approved a package of new taxes, money transfers and cost-saving measures to fund the system.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who engineered much of the bailout, was often at odds with Quiroz when the director proposed service cuts to meet budgetary constraints. Edelman said Wednesday that he was trying to save the mental health system, not dismantle it.

“Roberto had a tough road to go,” the supervisor admitted. “I wasn’t always pleased with what he was doing. I sometimes felt he could have done more to save the program. But he was always presenting cuts.”

Edelman expressed the hope that Quiroz’s replacement will be an “activist” who will defend the program and tell the board--if it is necessary--that funds must be raised to support it.