Mental health holds the line on budget

    Bobbie Wulf did not ask for an increase to her department?s budget during her meeting with the Washington County Board of Supervisors Wednesday. Wulf is the director of Washington County Mental Health, whose budget will remain at roughly $2.3 million.

    Wulf requested that the supervisors continue to levy the maximum allowable property tax to fund mental health. The property tax is already at its limit in Washington County.

    ?We can?t raise any more money locally,? said Wulf. ?The property tax limit was set in 1996 and it has been frozen since then.?

    Wulf said the county must levy the maximum amount allowable in order to be eligible for state money. Unfortunately for mental health, Wulf said the state government is unlikely to be very giving in the near future. She predicted that the Legislature would not provide additional funds to her department in the next two years.

    The supervisors asked Wulf if mental health provides services to people from other counties. Wulf said it does.

    ?When clients come to this county from another county, they receive services from the providers in our county,? she said. ?Each person has a county that is financially responsible for paying for their services. A person who comes from another county may have already established legal settlement in a new county, which then becomes the county liable for paying for their services.?

    Supervisor Jim Miksch asked Wulf who determines what services a mental health patient needs. Wulf said a team of experts determines it.

    ?We have a lot of services available in Washington County,? said Wulf. ?We are a service-rich county. Do we have a choice in what services to provide? That?s a complicated question. We do try to put some control factors to ensure our services are cost-effective. We try to use Medicare funds before we use waiver funds.?

    She said mental health typically goes along with what the team of experts decides for a patient.

    ?Sometimes, we don?t have the ability to say ?no? to a service if the team decides the patient needs it,? said Wulf. ?But if we don?t have the money, obviously we can?t provide the service.?

    Miksch then asked Wulf, ?If it looks like there?s not enough money, do we cut everybody back a little bit??

    Wulf replied, ?We did that in 2002. That year, we looked at all the hours the team didn?t feel were necessary, and cut those back. After we received money from the state, we could re-implement those service hours. Not everyone asked for those hours back, because it created an opportunity for our clients to be independent.?

    Wulf remarked that reducing service hours in the future will be difficult if mental health runs short of money. 

    ?We only fund survival services that people have to have,? she said.

For more, see our Feb. 9 print edition.