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County to Earmark Sunset Mental‑Behavioral Health Tax Residual for Jail Medical Contracts; Departments to Seek General‑Fund Backfill
Summary
At a county budget workshop, finance staff proposed earmarking the approximately $2.7 million remaining from a sunset mental‑behavioral health sales tax to cover a portion of the jail’s medical contract for 2026–27. Departments that previously used the tax-funded positions were told to present personnel requests for possible general‑fund support.
Kathy Funk Baxter, county finance director, told county commissioners at a budget workshop that the county projects about $2.7 million in residual proceeds from a mental‑behavioral health tax that has since sunset and that staff recommends using those funds to cover portions of the jail’s medical contract for 2026–27.
The residual is “not sufficient to continue a full year of funding for all of the departments” that had been supported by the tax, Baxter said. She said the jail’s medical contract is “well over $2,000,000,” and that applying the residual to the jail’s medical costs would exhaust the funds during 2027.
Why it matters: departments including drug court, mental health court, juvenile services, the clerk’s office, public defender and prosecuting attorney offices, and two behavioral health positions in the sheriff’s office have previously received partial funding from the now‑sunset tax. Commissioners were presented with line‑item estimates and told those departments will need to…
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