Behavioral Health Redesign – 2022/23

September 19, 2022

You may recall that the last General Assembly assigned to the Secretary of HHR the responsibility to establish a workgroup to review the current structure of DBHDS and make recommendations for:

• whether responsibility for DD services would be more appropriate in another state agency
• whether community-based behavioral health services and operation of the state hospitals should be divided into separate entities and whether a different structure is more appropriate for the management of the hospitals
• whether the current structure for community-based services can be enhanced to better deliver services

Based on a report released by the Governor’s “Chief Transformation Officer” to the Governor and the Chairs of House Appropriation Committee and the Senate Finance and Appropriation Committee (transmittal dated 12 September), it appears that this effort may have been included in the the items he plans to accomplish with the $10 M that was designated for his use.


Specifically he proposes to use $1.3M for “Consulting resources plus (up to) 1 dedicated FTE to help redesign behavioral health system, including (but not limited to) recommendations about the structure and operations of regional services, state mental health facilities, community services boards and developmental disabilities services.  Help to prepare bis to compete for additional federal grant funding.”