The Budget & Fiscal Advisory Committee of the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission voted on December 2025 to recommend two expenditure authorizations that together total $1,745,720.

The first measure, a request from staff, would amend contract 23MHSOAC020 with IBridge for $245,720 to extend hosting and maintenance of the commission’s data infrastructure. Lauren Quintero, acting deputy director of administration and performance management, told commissioners the contract “supports all commission data assets, including state partner data, our SAS analytics environments, and Tableau dashboards” and said losing the vendor would “risk losing access to essential data” and create costly delays.

The second request would amend contract 24MHSOAC061 with the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS) to add up to $1,500,000 to develop culturally responsive, trauma-informed online suicide-prevention modules for K–12 teachers, staff, parents and students. Ryan Kopchak, assistant deputy director of legislative and external affairs, said the CARS work “is congruent with the project that we're pushing forward legislation to require the development of this culturally responsive, suicide prevention training” and that staff intend to present the legislation as funded to support passage.

Public commenters and some commissioners raised procurement and appearance-of-insider concerns about awarding additional funds to a current contractor. Stacy Hiramoto, speaking during public comment, recommended stronger contractor standards and a checklist to ensure nonprofit partners have representative boards and staff reflective of the communities they serve: “They should have especially, if they are nonprofit, they should have boards of directors. These boards of directors should have representation from racial, ethnic, and BIPOC community … and LGBTQ communities on them.” Staff responded that CARS already coordinates with CDPH and DHCS and that the contract expands existing technical-assistance work to include new suicide-prevention modules and data collection.

Committee members then voted. The IBridge amendment recommendation passed on roll-call; the committee also voted to recommend the CARS amendment. One commissioner recorded an abstention on the CARS item. Both recommendations will be forwarded to the full commission for final action at the commission’s January meeting in Sacramento.

Next steps: the fiscal committee’s recommendations are advisory to the full commission, which will consider final approval in January. Staff said the CARS item was discussed and recommended by the Program Advisory Committee and that any legislative request tied to the training will be introduced in the next session.