Linn supervisors tackle this year's, next year's mental health shortfall

Linn County supervisors are scrambling to cover a deficit in the county's current mental health budget even as they approve a new budget that could be as much as $3.4 million in the red for much the same reasons.

Minutes after giving initial approval to a budget for fiscal 2013, supervisors approved a request Wednesday for $1.4 million from the state Department of Human Services' "risk pool." That money would be used to cover the last of a $5.3 million deficit in the current fiscal year's budget for services for mentally handicapped and developmentally disabled (MHDD).

The budget for fiscal 2013, which begins July 1, would run $2.2 million in the red under the state's current MHDD funding system. That deficit would be about $3.4 million if Gov. Terry Branstad's budget proposal is adopted by the state Legislature, leaving county officials hoping the state's latest effort to reform MHDD shifts services now funded by counties to state and federal programs.

"We don't have the income to cover this, so we're going to have to make more cuts" if that doesn't happen, said Supervisor Linda  Langston, D-Cedar Rapids.

The risk pool, managed by DHS to help counties that have fallen behind the demand for MHDD services, is available only to counties with waiting lists for residents needing treatment or services. After hitting its deficit last summer, Linn County adopted a waiting list, allowing it to tap the risk pool for $1 million in December.

After legislators last year failed to fully fund the pool for MHDD aid, the state also gave approval for counties to levy additi0nal property taxes in the new budget to help cover the shortfall. In Linn County's case, that's a nickel per $1,000 of assessed value, for a total of $466,270.

Even if the new risk pool request is fully funded, the county will draw about $200,000 from its end-of-the-fiscal-year fund balance to close the last of the operating gap, but some services cut last year may be restored.

As for the fiscal 2013 budget, it's up for public hearing March 14.  Upon final approval the following day basic tax levy will be $6.16 per $1,000, up a nickel for that supplemental MHDD levy. That will increase the county levy on a $100,000 home in Cedar Rapids by 5.4 percent.