Improving the California MHSA CPP & Unspent Fund Planning Process
Channel: Jerry Hall
Date: 2023-05-01

California's Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) includes requirements for stakeholders to be meaningfully engaged in the entire Mental Health Fund (MHF) planning process. This includes the evaluation, goal setting, strategic planning, and tactics the county Behavioral Health System (BHS) will deploy to address mental health and substance-use challenges faced by county stakeholders, especially those with serious mental illness and their families. 

This webinar discusses how the CPP is typically conflated with the 3-Year Plan and Expenditure report.  The CPP is not the plan itself, it is the vehicle in which the 3-Year Plan and Update is developed through.

The Unspent Funds are MHSA funds that are collected by the county each year, and which do not have to be immediately spent. CSS, PEI, and INN funds can be spent over 3-years, while WET and CF&TN funds may be spent over 10-years. Our contention is, just because the county can sit on these funds for typically 3-years, should they? And, why aren't stakeholders more meaningfully engaged in that decision making process? 

The County of San Diego is making a lot of progress in it's obligations to perform it's work by more meaningfully engaging stakeholders but, it must be respectful of the requirement that the BHAB actually 'review and approve' the actual processes the BHS will take to meaningfully train, engage, and be responsive to the needs and desires of the greater SMI, family, and other stakeholder constituents. 

Check out https://BHABrehab.com for more details. This presentation and support documents, including the deck and other materials, can be found at https://bhabrehab.com/webinar-improving-cpp-and-budgeting-processes/.

Share your thoughts about how your county handles it's  CPP obligations and best practices. This is a statewide issue that has been oftentimes ignored, yet one with significant consequence. 

There is a mandated, funded solution to getting the community engaged in the planning and decision making process on how $3.3 billion in MHSA funds are disbursed and deployed throughout the state each year. Wouldn't you like to have a say in how that money is spent? I sure would. 

This webinar was presented to interested stakeholders on May 1, 2023 and is offered uncut for your use. Please also feel free to offer comments and recommendations for future videos, especially ones that clarify any part of the CPP and related processes.  

Thanks for watching and commenting!

Please use freely, attributing BHABrehab.com. Thank you!