Key Supervisor Balks at Mental Health Funding

The future for dozens of Los Angeles County mental health clinics facing cutbacks over a funding shortage appeared bleak Tuesday after a key member of the Board of Supervisors said he was unwilling to provide local funds to bail out the facilities.

Supervisor Deane Dana said it is the state’s responsibility to rescue the four county clinics facing closure Oct. 1 and dozens of other privately operated clinics facing funding reductions.

“We’re not going to do that,” Dana said in an interview. “If we do it, we’ll be doing it from here on out.”

Dana, who has been the board’s swing vote on mental health issues, contended that he represents the majority on the board.

Supervisors delayed a decision on the fate of the clinics until next Tuesday, their final meeting before the cuts are scheduled to go into effect.

County Mental Health Director Roberto Quiroz told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that his department needs $7.6 million to avert closing four clinics and reducing services at dozens of other publicly and privately operated facilities.

The Legislature adjourned early Saturday without taking action on a bill that provided additional mental health dollars to counties. Gov. George Deukmejian pointed out that Los Angeles County is due to receive $360 million from cigarette taxes, some of which could be used to prevent mental health cuts.

But Richard Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer, told supervisors that any diversion of cigarette tax money for mental health will cause cuts in services at county hospitals.

Property Tax Revenue

Supervisors could dip into an estimated $12-million windfall in property tax revenues discovered after last June’s adoption of the county budget.

But Quiroz said he has mixed feelings about a county bailout of mental health programs.

“I don’t want to cut services,” he said in an interview. “By the same token, we would be delaying the inevitable.

“I happen to feel very strongly that this is a state responsibility,” Quiroz added. “What we intend to do is live within the budget that the state has given us.”

Clinics targeted for closure, in addition to the three closed last June because of a budget shortfall, are El Camino in Santa Fe Springs, Hubert Humphrey in South Los Angeles, Northeast in Highland Park and West Valley in Canoga Park.

Clinics Facing Cuts

Facing cuts in service are Arcadia, San Antonio, West Central, South Bay, Hollywood, Rio Hondo, San Pedro and Coastal clinics, plus dozens of privately operated facilities that rely on the county for funds.

An organization representing private clinics said they plan to jam the supervisors’ meeting next week with mental health workers and patients to urge the board to fund the clinics.

Susan Mandel, president of Pacific Clinics in Pasadena and past president of the Assn. of Community Mental Health Agencies, said the mentally ill are caught up in a “power struggle because the Legislature and governor couldn’t agree” on family planning legislation and a prisoner work plan--a reference to issues that stalled the spending bill in Sacramento.

Mandel said the supervisors would be wrong to limit the county’s contribution to mental health financing to 10%. “We’re talking about peoples’ lives here, not whether you have a 90-10 formula, and you stick to that in a rigid way,” Mandel said.

In a separate development, the state auditor-general confirmed Tuesday that it plans this month to begin auditing the county Department of Mental Health’s spending of state funds. The audit, requested in April by State Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), will address allegations that the county failed to spend all of its state mental health funding.