Pennsylvania counties list 911 systems and mental health as priorities
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Scott LaMar
Airdate: February 15, 2023
This is from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania’s website: “County governments are responsible for a wide variety of critical services, including provision of human services (mental health, intellectual disabilities, juvenile justice, children and youth, long-term care, drug and alcohol services, housing) to people in need in our communities. In addition, counties are responsible for emergency management and 911 services, administration of the courts and corrections system, elections, maintenance of county bridges, and the county property assessment rolls, and also are involved in environmental and land use planning, protection of open space and community and economic development.”
Do most Pennsylvanians know all that counties are responsible for? Counties often have to rely on the state for funding and other resources as well as to conform to mandates from the state.
At the beginning of every year, the County Commissioners Association goes to the legislature with a set of priorities.
In 2023, Pennsylvania counties listed six priorities:
1. Funding and reauthorizing 911 systems
2. County Inmates with Mental Health Issues
3. County Mental Health Base Funding Increase
4. Addressing the Needs of Children and Youth Who Have Complex Behavioral Health Issues
5. Broadband Access and Development
6. Promoting Election Integrity
On The Spark Wednesday, Venango County Commissioner Chip Abramovic, the President of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania said funding from the state for 911 systems has been stagnant for years,”We’re struggling to get 911 people and we have to attract them with an opportunity. This money helps offset wages and if we don’t have 911 staff or more critical need, our services won’t be here in our county. It would be moved to another kind of potentially dispatch our county.”
Lisa Schaefer, CCAP Executive Director described funding for mental health services as an ongoing issue and it’s something counties must provide,”Everything from direct provision to those other services that help support individuals who need mental health. So that’s in our schools, that’s in our communities and other supports like that. Unfortunately, that’s a service that we provide on behalf of the state. But state funding has really been very stagnant for the better part of a decade, if not more. But I think we’re all very aware of how much mental health issues have increased over that time period…particularly during the COVID pandemic, we really saw that that spike. So the cases that we’re seeing are going up. They’re becoming more complex, but we’re having to rely on the same level of funding and support from the state. So what we’d really like to do is work with the General Assembly and the administration to make sure that that state funding is providing appropriate support for our residents so that we can make sure that there’s funding to keep our providers in place so that our residents don’t have to experience long waits to get services or to travel to other counties or other towns where it might not be as convenient for them to get the services that they need. So the funding is really critical. But also what that does when you fund those community services, it has a ripple effect on other areas too. It has a ripple effect in our hospitals that are currently serving as sort of the de facto when people go to the emergency room for care because they don’t know where else to go, it can help support our criminal justice system by, you know, we are seeing increases in inmates with with mental illness. But if we can have the community programs in place to help them deal with that, that issue that might have caused the criminal behavior and support them so that it doesn’t recur, it’s really a better place that they can be in the community than trying to get treatment in the jail settings. So really supporting the county mental health based money at the state level could have such a great benefit in so many areas of our lives.”
