The state has announced its first plans for spending a $300 million pool of money created to boost Montana's ailing mental health and disability care systems.
The new grants are the first to come out of an initiative created last legislative session. The Behavioral Health System for Future Generations Commission is tasked with dolling out hundreds of millions of dollars to improve mental health and disability care in the state.
Gov. Greg Gianforte announced Tuesday that he approved recommendations to put $7.5 million toward addressing a backlog of fitness evaluations for criminal defendants and $10 million to increase capacity at local group homes.
Matt Kuntz, with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said this prioritization makes sense.
“These are issues that have been really needing to be addressed for years,” Kuntz said.
Kuntz said that while these grants will be helpful, he hopes the state invests some of the $300 million to generate funding down the road, not one-time grants like these.
The first grant will help counties hire medical professionals that could reduce a waitlist of people awaiting court-ordered fitness evaluations. The majority of that work to determine if a defendant is capable of standing trial or needs treatment has fallen to one psychiatrist. Many defendants are awaiting evaluations in jail and would likely face another waitlist if prescribed treatment at the Montana State Hospital.
Providers of residential behavioral health care or disability services can use the second one-time grants to buy or build new facilities, upgrade existing spaces and hire staff to increase bed capacity.