Supervisors press DPH over inconsistent wait‑time data and bed access as mental‑health budget requests move forward

San Francisco supervisors on Wednesday pressed the Department of Public Health to fix long‑standing gaps in how the department records and reports wait times and placement outcomes for mental‑health and substance‑use services, saying inconsistent data undercuts the board’s ability to set the city budget.

The Budget and Finance Committee’s third budget‑priority hearing on mental health and substance use opened with a presentation by the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s office, which highlighted three priorities: outreach (including expanded night coverage), crisis services and residential treatment. BLA staff noted that in fiscal‑year 2017–18 about 2,667 people were held involuntarily through 5150/5250 holds and that the division does not systematically track wait‑list information for residential placements.

Supervisors repeatedly asked DPH officials to explain how the report’s wait‑time chart was measured — specifically, when the clock starts and stops — and to reconcile widely differing answers supervisors said they had previously received. "We are getting wildly different numbers,” Supervisor Hillary Ronan…