WEST OLIVE, MI (WHTC) – Deciding on a presidential candidate will not be the only question before Ottawa County voters on March 8th.
The county board today decided to put a 10-year, three-tenths of a mill proposal on that ballot to fund county mental health operations. According to the wording of the proposal, the levy would provide “a fund to supplement (but not supplant) Michigan Medicaid funding, Michigan general fund dollars, and Ottawa County general fund dollars and to support additional programming and services for Ottawa County residents who are clients of the Ottawa County Community Mental Health Agency who receive programming and services therefrom pursuant to the terms of the Michigan Mental Health Code.”
County Community Mental Health Director Lynne Doyle, in presenting her argument for the millage before Commissioners last month, said that her department reported a two million-dollar shortfall for Fiscal 2015, anticipated a seven million-dollar shortfall over the next four years, and that critical programs and services would be reduced or eliminated if the millage effort is not successful. Doyle blamed state and Medicaid funding cuts, a change in the funding formula and increased costs for the monetary shortfall.
