Mental-health hearing by county draws hundreds

Hundreds packed the Shoreline Conference Center Monday night to support King County's proposed Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan — and the sales-tax increase that would put it in motion.

The tax increase — one penny for every $10 spent in King County — would generate about $47 million annually to help support programs to keep the mentally ill and drug dependent off the streets, out of jails and in programs to help them.

"The problem is dramatic," said Metropolitan King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson, adding that the mentally ill are oftentimes "warehoused" in jails, which proves expensive for the government and provides no help for the inmate.

"Right now, we're not doing right by the people with mental illness and disabilities."

The crowd of 400 attendees — a record for a Metropolitan King County Council Town Hall meeting — agreed, filling the chairs and spilling into aisles.

"We call [the mentally ill] our frequent fliers," said Mark Bolton, deputy director of the county's department of adult and juvenile detention, adding that the King County Jail has become the state's second largest mental-health facility.

"We say they're doing time on the installment plan."

It costs King County $98 per day per jail bed for an ordinary felon, and $300 per day per bed for a mentally ill one, he said. The added costs are for extra supervision and care.

"In the long run, treatment is much cheaper than a jail cell," said Councilmember Julia Patterson.

A report compiled by the Healthy Families and Community Services task force last June found an $83.1 million gap in funding for needed services. The tax, if it passes a council vote, would subtract about $25 million from that figure, said Julia Sterkovsky, executive director of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

The additional funding would help the state provide treatment instead of shunting mentally ill and chemically dependent people through the criminal courts or to emergency rooms.

The funding could also ease the burden on an overtaxed system of service providers, many of whom spoke during public comment. They urged council members to endorse the plan and pass the tax, mourning colleagues who'd been forced to leave their positions because they couldn't make a living on their salaries.

"It's not going to cover everything the system needs," warned David Stone, chief executive officer of Sound Mental Health, but "it would make a huge difference in terms of caseloads."

Linda Shen: 206-464-3301 or lshen@seattletimes.com