Lawmakers overhaul Montana's mental health system

Matt Kuntz is with the National Alliance on Mental Health of Montana. For years, he’s lobbied lawmakers on improvements to the state’s mental health system.

He called this year’s legislative session one of the best he’s been a part of. He says one of the biggest wins is major changes to how people are involuntarily committed to mental health institutions.

“Huge issues, all incredibly hard to legislate, problems that develop over years and take a lot of work,” he says.

Local officials will now be able to order a 72 hour hold for people in crisis. There will also be funding to commit people who need more care to local institutions. Kuntz says that will prevent people being moved from their community to the state psychiatric hospital near Butte.

He added that funding for a new mental health facility for criminal defendants will help alleviate backlogs of people in county jails waiting for treatment.

Lawmakers also approved most of Gov. Greg Gianforte’s budget requests for a long-term plan to reshape the mental health system.

That includes money to bolster services at community mental health clinics and case management services. The state hospital will also get more staffing to help people transition back home.

Lawmakers approved nearly $40 million to jumpstart 10 initiatives in total. Long term, most of them will depend on Medicaid expansion funding, which lawmakers renewed this session.

Democratic House Rep. Mary Caferro thought that funding didn’t go far enough. Caferro was able to secure $2.5 million to add more beds to treat people in crisis.

“So that was really important to me to try to get some funding to the community level for those crisis beds to avoid people having to, hopefully, go to a higher level of care,” she said.

It’s now up to Gov. Gianforte to sign much of the legislation and funding passed by lawmakers.