Mental Health Fund Transfers to Be Discussed

Concerned that millions of dollars earmarked for mental health services have been transferred to the Ventura County Medical Center, advocates for the mentally ill will meet with Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon today to discuss the financing arrangement.

The advocates want proof that no more than 10% of a special trust fund designed to treat the mentally ill is being transferred to the county hospital.

Under state law, up to 10% of the trust money can be shifted within the mental health, social services and medical center budgets. In the past six years, about $4 million from this fund has been transferred from the mental health budget to the hospital.

Records show that each year the full 10% is usually siphoned from mental health care to operation of the hospital.

“We think it’s a disgraceful practice,” said Ed Nani, president of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Ventura County. “We don’t like it, but we have no control over it. It’s according to the law.”

Nani and at least half a dozen other alliance leaders are scheduled to meet with Mahon at 2:30 p.m. at his office at the government center.

“We want to know exactly what is occurring in the transferring of money,” Nani said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that the transfers don’t extend past 10% and that the mentally ill are not being shortchanged.”

Confirming the legality of the practice is just the first step in the organization’s plan, alliance officials said. After meeting with Mahon, Nani said, the alliance plans to launch a campaign to get county officials to decrease the amount typically transferred from the special mental health funds, which this fiscal year totals more than $14 million. The projected amount to be transferred this year is nearly $1.5 million.

“We want to target supervisors and [Health Care Agency Director] Dr. [Pierre] Durand first, to try to reduce that 10% to a much smaller number,” Nani said. “We want to try to work it out on that level first.”

But if group members are unsuccessful with county leaders, advocates say they will begin lobbying to get the state law changed. Nani said he believes the Legislature intended that the so-called realignment funds be used specifically for mental health services.

“We will push to get the law changed,” Nani said. “But if we can work it out on the local level, that would be much better.”

The alliance is not alone in raising concerns over the transfer practices.

On Wednesday representatives of county psychiatrists called for an emergency meeting with Mahon to discuss the same issue.

After a nearly two-hour closed session, the five members of the Psychiatric Executive Committee said they were satisfied that transfers of trust fund money to the hospital have been done legally.

Chairman Ed Arevalo and committee members Jerome Lance, Tim Tice, Dave Gudeman and Craig Duncan attended along with Richard Clemence, a consultant to the alliance.

“At the end of today’s meeting we went around the room and the doctors were all comfortable about what they learned,” Lance said. “After talking to Tom Mahon, we don’t have any reason to believe that there were any illegalities taking place.”

In all cases the Board of Supervisors approved the transfers and had legal authority to shift the money around, Lance said.

“There were no irregularities here,” Lance said. “That money has been siphoned has been an unfortunate mischaracterization. The amounts have been lawfully allowable and shifted by the Board of Supervisors in a public, open process.”

Lance said when mentally ill indigents with no health insurance need medical treatment, the county hospital picks up the tab. The services have run into the millions of dollars during the past five years, he said.

“The medical center’s cost for treating the indigent mentally ill could be considered a reasonable offset to the amount of mental health money being given to the hospital,” Lance said.

But a source in the mental health department, who requested anonymity, disputed that contention. Seventy-five percent of Behavioral Health’s patients are covered by public health programs that reimburse the hospital for mental care, the source said.

Also, Behavioral Health--the county’s mental health agency--is often charged by the medical center for those patients who have no health insurance. For the fiscal year ending last June, Behavioral Health was charged $102,000 for such care, the source said.