The Current BHS Planning Process & Timeline Cycle is Broken

Last updated on July 26, 2021

The following illustrates the dysfunction of the current BHS MHSA Planning and Budgeting cycle. Issues are described below:

1. The annual MHSA Three-Year Plan or Update is released at a Behavioral Health Advisory Board (BHAB) in September, is intended to have a public review during the next 30-days, and is voted upon by the BHAB for approval and submission to the Board of Supervisors for approval, an average of 90 days after the fiscal year the plan applies has started.
   
2. The BHAB holds its annual Retreat several weeks after the MHSA plan release, without any consideration of the MHSA planning and budgeting timeline cycle.
   
3. The Quality and Improvement team issues the Quality & Improvement Evaluations of the previous fiscal year’s outcomes – after the current fiscal years MHSA plan was released and approved.
   
4. The Quality and Improvement team issues two current year Work Plans, one for Mental Health and the other for Substance Use Disorders, late in the second quarter of the current fiscal year of that plan.
   
5. Public forums are typically held in the second quarter of the fiscal year, after the current fiscal year’s MHSA Plan has been published. The report from those forums may be used by BHS to inform them as they develop a plan and budget unbeknownst to the BHAB for HHSA and CAO in the third quarter of the current fiscal year and applicable to the following fiscal year.
   
   In any case the BHAB won’t see the report until late in the first quarter of the new fiscal year when they receive the MHSA plan draft.
   
6. As suggested above, whatever planning and budget deliberations the BHS conducts with the HHSA and CAO, approved by the Board of Supervisors at the end of the current fiscal year, BHAB has absolutely zero awareness to reasoning or strategy and does not make any contribution to that effort.