Chair Lee on school-based mental health clinic funding
Lee asks about school-based mental health clinic budgets. Martin explains these are state-licensed and funded programs. Anderson confirms funding doesn't flow through DOHMH. Lee raises concerns about startup costs and Medicaid impacts; Martin says they'll follow up with the state.
Okay, so I'll stop, I'll have one last question around school-based mental health clinics and then pass it on to our chair.
For school-based mental health clinics, what was the FY27 and FY26 budgets?
respectively.
Yeah, thank you very much for this question.
The reality is that
We are proud of our work that we do to help on technical assistance, quality assurance, helping to do the strategic placement of these schools.
But ultimately, these are state-licensed and funded programs.
And so, you know, we'll have to defer some of the specifics around the funding to the state unless...
Yeah, just to add, as the commissioner said, right, the funding for these does not flow through our budget, but the budgeting contracts for it.
Some of them at least are administered through New York City public schools or independently.
Yeah, because I know when it first started, a lot of the feedback we had heard from the community and especially the Article 31 clinics that are partnering with the schools was the startup funding costs was so little.
I think it was maybe $25,000 if I remember, which was not enough for them to get started and running.
And so if you've heard any feedback from the providers on how it's going,
That would be great if you could give us feedback on that.
And I know that a lot of it is from Medicaid dollars with the reimbursement system.
So is that how is that going to then be impacted or have you had conversations with OMH on what that's going to look like?
On the school side, because obviously the clinics are operated under the state, but then how that impacts the families if the state Medicaid money starts drying up or if it gets cut.
Yeah, or if people lose insurance and lose coverage.
Yeah, exactly.
We can certainly follow up on that.
I personally haven't had those conversations yet with the state, but certainly something that we're happy to partner with them on to try and mitigate the impact of that.
Okay, perfect.
Okay, I'm going to pass it on to Chair Cabon.