Four Counties seeks $120,000 from Montgomery County for mental‑health services; requests opioid‑settlement funding

Steve Denny, the newly installed executive director of Four Counties, briefed commissioners on service demand and three county funding requests: general public mental‑health funding, liquor‑by‑the‑drink tax funding, and opioid‑settlement support for a case‑management position. "Our request for 2027 is a $120,000," Denny said, adding a goal to increase to $160,000 by 2029 to raise Montgomery County’s per‑capita rank in state comparisons.

Denny said Four Counties received 3,639 requests for service from Montgomery County residents in the last year, an increase of 367 over the prior year; about 17% of admissions require urgent or crisis services and roughly 0.5 require psychiatric‑level care. On opioid‑settlement funding, he said "we're requesting 54,975" to support an 0.85 FTE case‑management position embedded in the Crisis Community Outreach program that transitions incarcerated people into community care. He also reported program outcomes: during the 3–6 month post‑discharge window recidivism averaged about 37%, and housing retention post‑discharge was roughly 82% for tracked individuals.

Commissioners asked if the increase in cases reflected population changes or higher service utilization; Denny said it is a mix and offered to provide age and admission breakdowns. He cautioned that opioid settlement dollars are unpredictable and that staff would scale positions proportionally if allocations fall short. No formal county appropriation vote was taken; commissioners asked staff to review the requests as part of upcoming budget work.