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State seeks millions to expand Free Through Recovery and Community Connect care coordination programs
Summary
Agency officials told the Appropriations Committee their outcome-based programs that link behavioral health supports with other systems served roughly 1,400–1,500 people and the executive budget proposes increases to bring both programs to a 2,000-person monthly census over the next biennium.
Laura Anderson, policy director of the Behavioral Health Division, described two outcome-based care-coordination programs the department administers: Free Through Recovery, which serves justice-involved adults, and Community Connect, which serves community members not involved with the justice system. Anderson said both programs use care coordination and certified peer support specialists and pay providers when participants reach outcomes in domains such as housing, employment, recovery and law-enforcement interactions.
Free Through Recovery began in February 2018 as a partnership with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Anderson said referrals to the program come from parole and probation or through DOCR’s internal transition process. She said since 2018, more than 7,000 individuals have been served and that, as of the November program census, about 1,451 participants were active. Anderson told the committee the program prioritizes people with substance-use diagnoses or co-occurring conditions and that Stanford analysis cited in the presentation showed reduced reincarceration among program participants.
Community Connect, launched in 2021 and modeled after Free Through Recovery, focuses on people not in the criminal justice system but with behavioral health needs that create downstream costs in housing, child welfare or health care. Anderson said nearly 8,000 people had been served through Community Connect since its launch, with about 1,400 individuals active in the most recent census; she also said more than half of Community Connect participants were homeless at intake.
Budget request: Anderson summarized the governor’s executive-budget request. For Free Through Recovery she said the base general-fund appropriation is $15.5 million for the current biennium; the executive request adds provider inflation, an estimated $2.4 million to maintain a 1,500 monthly census and about $4.0 million to phase up to a 2,000 census by May 2026, producing a total request of about $22.2 million for the program. For Community Connect she said the base is roughly $15.8 million and the request includes provider inflation plus approximately $4.4 million to phase up to a 2,000 census; the division’s materials show the larger combined biennial request for Community Connect when inflation and census increases are included.
Committee discussion focused on how the two programs’ caseloads are measured and prioritized. Representative O’Brien and Chairman Nelson asked how referrals and counts align with DOCR and whether the department had flexibility to move funds mid-biennium; Anderson and Pam Segnus, executive director of Behavioral Health, said the department works closely with DOCR on admissions and that, later in the biennium, department savings have been used to stabilize program census when necessary. Anderson acknowledged that managing census can be difficult because admissions are driven by partner referrals and individual needs and that the department had used about $1.4 million in intra-department savings in the current biennium to hold the census at about 1,450.
Length of service and unit costs: Representative Murphy asked about average participant length of stay; Anderson said the program average was about 120 days (approximately four months). Anderson and others noted the program is monthly-rate based with incentive payments tied to outcomes; Representative Murphy calculated a rough per-month average near $462 per person when dividing the proposed funding by expected participants.
Ending: Committee members pressed the agency for more recent monthly census data and cautioned that Community Connect’s eligible population is less defined than Free Through Recovery’s justice-involved cohort. Agency staff promised to provide additional census data and documentation of the methodology used to estimate future need.
