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closeSaturday, Jan. 24, 2009
Benton, Franklin to provide bailout to 3 small counties
By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer
Benton and Franklin counties will be giving three small Eastern Washington counties $250,000 over the next five months to preserve mental health services in the wake of state funding cuts.
The bailout was agreed to Friday by board members of Greater Columbia Behavioral Health, which will lose $1.6 million in state funding between now and June 30.
The cuts affect all 11 counties in the mental health agency, which is one of 12 regional support networks in the state, but the cutbacks hit hardest on Columbia, Skamania and Garfield counties.
Max Benitz Jr., representing Benton County on the agency board, offered the bailout as a quick fix so the three counties could deliver mental health services through the end of the fiscal year.
The state mental health division ordered the cuts after discovering that Greater Columbia's charges for service hours are higher than in other areas of the state. The actuarial study led to lower rates of funding for most of the state's 39 counties, but the biggest was for the Greater Columbia agency.
The $1.6 million in lost funding includes $707,891 in non-Medicaid money and $906,000 in Medicaid, according to documents provided by Greater Columbia. The two amounts equal 7.3 percent of the agency's funding for fiscal 2009.
Greater Columbia is the only regional support network in the state that has a "hold harmless" clause in its formula to distribute state money to each of its 11 counties. That way the counties with the smallest populations -- Garfield, Columbia and Skamania -- are guaranteed a base funding, which comes from a portion of the funding for Benton and Franklin counties.
The actuarial study also found the smaller counties' health services were being subsidized, which triggered the penalty.
"This cuts off the head of two counties and threatens a third," said Ken Roughton, a mental health services provider in Dayton who is on the agency board.
No other regional support network uses a funding formula that guarantees base funding for its smaller counties, said Rick Weaver of Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health Services in Yakima.
"We are taking a much greater cut than others because of the way we've been doing it," he said.
"The state has upped the penalty for thumbing our noses at them," said Mike Berney, a board member from Whitman County.
"If we don't do this, we will dig ourselves deeper in debt," Benitz warned.
The offer of $50,000 per month to save Garfield, Columbia and Skamania counties will come from Benton and Franklin counties' share of funding, which is gaining dollars under the new formula.
Documents from Greater Columbia show Benton-Franklin's share will be 0.7 percent more under the new formula, making it easier to offer the $50,000 bridge for the three counties. Each of the remaining counties in the Greater Columbia agency faces a funding cut.
Columbia County had been receiving $31,158 but will collect about $27,000 per month thanks to the bailout. Garfield County will have restored funding of approximately $20,000 and Skamania County will have about $53,000.
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