The state’s health department is requesting a one-time $386.1 million cash pump into behavioral and public health services, with more than 84% of the deposit going into a new state-operated psychiatric complex.

The Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee hosted its first hearing for the Fiscal Year 2023 budget this month.

In the governor’s $74.1 billion proposed budget for the new fiscal year, $325 million would be infused into a new state psychiatric facility complex, which would replace the 66-year-old Hawthorn Center and the 43-year-old Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital as a single campus.

“This new facility will be used to provide treatment, care and services to children and adults with severe mental illness,” said Elizabeth Hertel, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). “We would expect the build of this facility to take around four or five years at a minimum.”

Currently, the Hawthorn Center in Northville is the sole state-run psychiatric hospital for pediatric patients – and with 55 beds authorized by the state for treating youths, admittance is often weighed down by a waitlist.

The governor also proposed spending an extra $15.2 million of FY 2022 dollars and $10.5 million in FY 2023 to open up new units at the Hawthorn Center, extending services to 28 more kids.

Additionally, the governor’s spending plan would increase availability of inpatient mental health services by 48 adults and 12 children with $14.8 million during the present-day fiscal year and $10.5 million in FY 2023.

“As we were going through the committee process last year, people within the mental health profession were constantly saying that we (probably) had enough beds in the state – it’s just we didn’t have enough staff to adequately service those beds and to treat the patients (who) would fill those beds,” said Sen. Rick Outman (R-Six Lakes), the subcommittee chair.

He asked Hertel “how do we entice” adequate crew numbers?

“Is it a lack of university programs to bring people into this mental health profession, or is it that the people that graduate from these programs leave the state and go to other states? What barriers do we have to getting people in that profession? And how do we rectify this issue?” Outman asked.

According to information assessed in a January article by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, Michigan holds approximately one behavioral health provider per 360 citizens.

Moreover, the state has 242 designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) for mental health professionals, equating to more than 40% of residents residing within a community where behavioral health care needs are unfulfilled.

At this rate, Michigan could still be lacking 940 psychiatrists, 1,220 psychologists, 1,790 addiction counselors and 2,780 mental health counselors in 2030, per supply and demand estimations by the Health Resources and Service Administration from 2019.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposal also includes $25 million to offer student loan repayment assistance to behavioral health practitioners who serve in a neighborhood that is federally designated as a shortage area.

The fund is a one-time enlargement of the Michigan Essential Health Provider Program, extending loan repayment resources to mental health professionals.

“I would say, from a (inpatient psychiatric) bed perspective, we have enough beds – we don’t have enough beds available because of a lack of adequate staffing,” Hertel said, expressing hope that “the state loan repayment program expansion request will address the (stress and) encourage people to go into that field and then practice in areas that are severely lacking in those professionals.”

She said she believes there are multiple tracks the state should be pursuing to address both short-term issues and construct a system that works for people in the state long-term. Hertel added this could feature more competitive wages and salaries.

Whitmer’s budget includes a $135 million payment expansion for Michigan’s behavioral health workers.

“In many instances, the people that we are seeing coming into treatment and needing those inpatient beds are very challenging – they exhibit very challenging behaviors and sometimes, they need one-on-one or two-on-one supervision 24 hours a day, and that’s really hard,” Hertel said.

Other one-time behavioral and public health investments include:

– $15 million from the General Fund to restore the investment into the jail diversion funds. Hertel said the funds are allocated to local organizations to help community-based efforts initiate and expand jail diversion programs, which are intended to direct individuals to treatment or support services before being placed under law enforcement custody or jail.

– $10 million from the General Fund for a gun violence prevention program, which will be distributed in the forms of grants and will fund a multi-year study on gun violence prevention that would be conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention.

– $8.6 million on multicultural integration organizations.

– $2.5 million for first responder mental health funding, restoring the General Fund investment into helping first responders with post traumatic stress syndrome and other mental health conditions.

This story courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.