Chair Lee opening remarks on FY27 DOHMH mental health budget
Chair Lee opens the DOHMH Mental Hygiene portion of the FY27 Executive Budget Hearing, joined by Chair Cabán. She outlines the $923.1M mental health budget, noting increases for mobile treatment teams, clubhouses, the Office of Community Mental Health, and savings measures. Headcount was 24 below budgeted.
Okay, I think we're ready to begin.
All right, so good afternoon and welcome to the second FY27 Executive Budget Hearing for the day, focusing on Department of Mental Health and Mental Hygiene on the mental health portion.
I'm Councilmember Linda Lee, and I'm pleased to be joined by my colleague and chair, Councilmember Caban, Chair of the Committee on Mental Health and Addiction.
And we have been joined by the deputy speaker on Zoom, Councilmember Narcisse, Wong, Wilson, Felder and Areola on Zoom, and Councilmember Ressler.
And I think that's it.
And Councilmember Shulman, oh yeah, because you were the chair of the other one.
Sorry about that.
Okay, so welcome again to Commissioner Dr.
Alistair Martin and your team, and thank you so much for joining us today to answer our questions.
On May 12, 26, the administration released the executive financial plan for FY27-30 with a proposed fiscal 27 budget of $124.7 billion.
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's mental health proposed fiscal 27 budget of $923.1 million represents 0.7% of the...
administration's proposed FY27 budget in the executive plan.
And this is an increase of $67.8 million, or 7.9%, from the $855.4 million originally budgeted in the preliminary plan.
This increase results from several actions, mostly involving mobile treatment teams, mental health clubhouses, the Office of Community Mental Health, and an array of savings measures.
As of April 26, April 2026, DOHMH's headcount for mental health was 24 less than their fiscal 26 budgeted headcount.
In the Council's preliminary budget response, we called on the Mayor to add $18 million to DOHMH's mental health portfolio to invest in intensive mobile treatment, assertive community treatment, and crisis respite centers.
We also raised concerns regarding mental health programs, one-shot funding, mental health continuum, New York City 988 to ensure free suicide prevention counseling is available to all New Yorkers in crisis, peer specialists, and to ensure we are adequately funding clubhouses.
Although our request was not included in the plan, I look forward to hearing from the Commissioner today.
About their plan to sustain critical mental health programs and what steps are being taken to ensure these vital programs remain available to New Yorkers who rely on them.
And I now want to turn it over to my co-chair for this hearing, Chair Caban, for her opening statement.