Board’s Caution Is Appropriate

With a $5-million budget deficit, millions more in unanticipated debts from its mental health merger and a federal Medicare lawsuit, and a brand-new chief administrator just starting to sort things out, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is understandably looking for easy answers.

And what could be easier than spending a windfall of about $10 million a year the county stands to collect as its share of a state settlement with tobacco companies?

Indeed, the cash hasn’t even arrived yet and already the supervisors are devising ways to spend it on things that may or may not have anything to do with the money’s intended purpose: reimbursing the county for providing medical care to county residents whose health problems were caused by smoking cigarettes.

The most fully defined of the plans was brought to the board last week by Supervisor Frank Schillo. His proposal would commit about half of the annual tobacco settlement windfall to expanded housing and treatment for the mentally ill. The rest of the board saw merit in the idea but balked at passing an ordinance to lock in that use of those funds.

We agree on both counts. Providing appropriate housing for the seriously mentally ill is an important and long overdue obligation. But the supervisors should have learned from their experience with Proposition 172 that passing an ordinance to lock up bonus funds for a specific purpose can limit flexibility down the road.

Most important: The tobacco-settlement windfall should not undermine the county’s commitment to shape up its sloppy ways of doing business, as pointed out by quick study David L. Baker.

This is not to say that the board should not give serious consideration to Schillo’s proposal. It calls for supervised housing facilities to be developed for 250 seriously mental ill patients and long-term housing for 40 patients who must live in a locked facility. Since Camarillo State Hospital was closed, no such facility exists locally and 40 such patients have been housed out of the county at great expense and hardship.

The full board wisely voted to send the proposal to its own tobacco settlement subcommittee and the county’s Mental Health Board for a month’s review. Charging into things at the behest of one or two supervisors without going through all the proper channels is one habit the board definitely needs to break.

Appropriate housing for the seriously mentally ill is a critical need, and using money from the tobacco settlement looks like a healthy way to pay for it. The key is to proceed cautiously and not get locked into commitments that future boards of supervisors will regret.