Va. Beach sheriff offers to aid mental health program

VIRGINIA BEACH

Sheriff Ken Stolle has offered the city $121,596 from the jail's reserve funds, enough to provide psychiatric medicine and therapy to about 450 poor people with mental-health and substance-abuse disorders served by a city program.

The offer was announced Tuesday night during City Council budget discussions. Last month, city officials sought to cut that amount from the Beach's mental health substance abuse program, saying they had to make "tough choices."

The council is likely to vote to accept the sheriff's offer at its meeting next week.

Mental health advocates and Stolle said the cuts could mean those not treated would wind up back in hospitals or jails.

Stolle said Wednesday that he understands the needs of individuals with mental-health issues because he served on the Health and Human Resources Subcommittee for 10 years when he was a state senator.

There are about 250 inmates in the city jail with mental illness who are not receiving proper treatment, and cutting treatment programs is not an option, he said.

"The money being cut would dramatically impact the people coming into my jail with mental illness," he said. "This is money well-spent, and it will decrease the money I'd spend housing them."

He said there was also an ethical element to his offer. "There's a responsibility for all of us in government to provide a safety net for the mentally ill," he said. "It helps me and them, so I think it's a win-win situation."

If the therapeutic and medication services were cut, some of those affected would've been placed on long waiting lists and others probably would not have received services at all. Some receive Medicaid, but many have no insurance.

The program is administered by the city's Department of Human Services, which could see its operating budget decrease by 1.9 percent, to $107.7 million, because of proposed budget cuts.

John W. Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs' Association in Richmond, said he hasn't heard of any other instances in the state where a sheriff used reserve funds to pay for proposed mental-health and substance-abuse cuts.

It's not surprising that Stolle is making an effort to address the mental-health problems in his jail because 16 percent of incarcerated people around the state need mental-health services, Jones said Wednesday. Also, jail and prison staff are not trained to handle inmates with mental-health issues, he said.

Kay Ashby, president of the Virginia Beach chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, applauded Stolle's decision. "You wouldn't put a cancer patient in jail, would you?" Ashby said.

Aileen Kroll, legislative and policy counsel for the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, said there is an increasing awareness of the consequences of not treating those with mental illness.

The nonprofit center advocates for mental illness research and treatment.

Bob Morin, the city's Human Services director, said the department was pleased that Stolle wanted to pay for the services. Morin said the department spends about $1.3 million each year treating inmates with severe mental health and substance abuse disorders in the city jail.

"It's a very exciting prospect to be able to work alongside of the Sheriff's Department and try to work with the folks in the jail who are having these mental illnesses and substance-abuse disorders," Morin said.

Jennifer Jiggetts, (757) 222-5150, jennifer.jiggetts@pilotonline.com