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County officials seek next steps after state rejects several behavioral-health infrastructure grant applications
Summary
Santa Clara County staff reported projects to add behavioral health beds; county leaders criticized the state's opaque grant process after several county proposals were rejected. Committee received the report.
County staff updated the Finance and Government Operations Committee on June 24 about local efforts to expand behavioral-health treatment capacity and said several county projects were not funded in a recent state bond round.
Officials described a multi-project effort that aims to add roughly 530 treatment beds across facility types; about 210 beds are already implemented and roughly 230 beds remain in active projects. County staff said they submitted multiple projects to the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (the state bond program) but received no feedback explaining why several county applications were not awarded.
Why it matters: local leaders said the county faces unmet demand for treatment and housing services for people with serious mental illness and substance use disorder. The state bond was intended to fund a portion of such infrastructure, but the county said the state did not provide sufficient transparency about selection criteria or why projects were excluded.
Deputy County Executive Keeley (Facilities & Fleet) reported the county—s active pipeline includes: the Behavioral Health Services Center at the county medical center campus and three other projects (101 Jose Figueres, Valley Health Center Morgan Hill SNF and a 264 North Morrison residential substance use property) that were submitted to round one of bond funding. The state awarded funding to some projects across California but did not approve the county—s applications for round one.
Supervisor James (commenting from the dais) criticized the state process as lacking published criteria, absent review transparency and without an appeals path: he said the state accepted applications for $3.3 billion across 294 proposals and awarded 124 projects but did not disclose evaluation details that would let counties and applicants learn why projects were chosen. "To not even offer this basic information with taxpayer money is deeply troubling," the supervisor said, urging county staff to press for more clarity and to prepare stronger applications for round two.
County staff said the state indicated second-round priorities will differ and include higher weighting for rural or remote areas and behavioral-health campus projects; staff said they will pursue round two with revised strategy and will also continue work on local projects regardless of state awards. Staff said they will present a fuller report in August.
The committee voted to receive the monthly update. The motion carried on recorded votes at the meeting.
