Funding for a Justice Reinvestment program to provide mental health treatment to newly released criminals was cut in half in the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning, and one JFAC member tried unsuccessfully to eliminate it entirely. “Given our dire need for road funding right now and the state of our highways and what we’re looking at going forward, I do not believe that there’s a pressing need for mental health care for felons right now,” said Rep. Sage Dixon, R-Ponderay, a second-term lawmaker and new member of the joint budget committee. “So I would like to remove line item 10.”

There was a pause as Dixon’s motion awaited a second; Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, tried to second it, but couldn’t because she’d already seconded the first motion, which included $5,563,900 for the program, half of Gov. Butch Otter’s recommended $11.2 million. Dixon’s motion then died for lack of a second, and the original motion for the Mental Health Services Division of the state Department of Health & Welfare passed on an 18-1 vote, with just Dixon dissenting.

Sen. Abby Lee, R-Fruitland, said the move by a group of five JFAC members who crafted the budget plan – who didn’t include Dixon – to cut the funding in half reflected an updated analysis of the number likely to be served in the first year. “The reduction in the $11 million is not a reduction in need,” she said. “It really just reflects the gap analysis report, the number of individuals who were identified. We’ll probably revisit that next year.”

Idaho Health & Welfare Director Dick Armstrong said his department’s budget request was based on an analysis conducted nearly a year ago, and the state Department of Correction did a more recent analysis, but it looked at a slightly different population to arrived at the $5.6 million figure. Corrections officials shared that figure with JFAC during their budget hearing, “and unfortunately the number stuck,” Armstrong said. “The statute says if services are delivered, Health & Welfare has to deliver them, subject to funding.”

“We’ll be more focused on who we serve; we won’t be able to serve as many,” Armstrong said. “But I’m pleased that we can serve a good majority of them. The ones that need it the most will get it.”

The proposal was developed as part of Idaho’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which is seeking to both cut costs and improve public safety by reserving prison cell space for the most dangerous offenders, while moving lower-risk offenders back into communities with supervision. Felony offenders get mental health treatment while they’re in prison, but it’s cut off when they’re released – leaving them at greater risk to commit new crimes as they cope with their illnesses and changing circumstances. If Idaho had expanded its Medicaid program, those services already would have been covered with federal funds.

Armstrong said he was taken by surprise by the zero-funding proposal from Dixon. “I don’t disagree that our infrastructure needs attention,” he said. “But I think we should wait and see what the federal government will do, because we all heard the speech the other night that suggested that funding for highway infrastructure will be a priority.”

Asked about mental health treatment for newly released felons being weighed against road work, Armstrong said, “They’re very different. I understand the struggle that JFAC has in finding money for all the priorities that are put forward. However, public safety is high priority, and we see the appropriate mental health treatment for those who have been incarcerated to be a major component of public safety.”

Other than that item, the budget approved by JFAC for mental health services this morning generally matches the governor’s recommendation; one exception is that it doesn’t include a reduction due to a change in children’s mental health because of the Jeff D settlement, but that item will come in a later “trailer” appropriation bill, after related legislation that’s now awaiting a Senate vote has passed. “We don’t have any choice about that,” said Sen. Steve Bair, R-Blackfoot, one of the five lawmakers who worked to craft the budget plan. “We have to do it,” to settle the longstanding lawsuit over children’s mental health services in Idaho.

Legislative budget writers voted 19-0 in favor of a budget for psychiatric hospitalization that matched the governor’s recommendation, but the lawmakers, working with legislative budget analysts, shifted some endowment funds within that budget to cover replacement items, freeing up enough to fund a clinical application specialist at State Hospital North that had been requested but not included in Otter’s budget plan. The bottom line stayed the same, at a 5.2 percent increase in state general funds, and 1.5 percent in total funds.

JFAC voted unanimously for a budget for Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention services that left out $302,000 Otter had recommended for a provider rate increase. Lee said an increase is needed, but must be crafted together with the Judicial Branch, the Department of Correction and the Department of Juvenile Corrections, which can’t support a provider rate increase right now from their existing appropriations. “The motion makers support the concept of providing a rate increase to providers, but do not want to create any unintended consequences by only providing a rate increase for the Department of Health & Welfare,” she said. The intent of the budget plan is for the agencies to work together “to identify a sustainable path moving forward on this issue.”

In the final Health & Welfare related budget set this morning, the joint committee backed a flat budget for the Catastrophic Health Care Fund, after first voting down a motion from Rep. Phylis King, D-Boise, to cut it by $5 million. King noted that costs in the $18 million program that, together with local counties, covers for the catastrophic health care bills of people who can’t afford to pay them, have been declining as more Idahoans get health insurance through the state insurance exchange.

But Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, said, “We decided as a group to keep the funding for the catastrophic health care fund at the level that it has been … so that we can anticipate and better react to any changes that may come from the federal government, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. So this is just using caution.” That matches the fund’s request. “We can really anticipte that next year, barring some radical change, we may have some additional funds here that we can return,” Souza said.

King’s motion, which was seconded by Dixon, failed on a 4-15 vote, with just Rep. Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and Sen. Mark Nye, D-Pocatello, joining King and Dixon in supporting it. Souza’s motion, which was seconded by Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, then passed unanimously.