BY ANNE MICHAUD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Hamilton County Community Mental Health Board lacks quality control over the nearly 50 agencies that receive property tax money each year, according to an independent auditor's report.
The board has monitored its agencies for years for efficacy and customer satisfaction, but it does nothing with the findings, said the auditor, Clark, Schaefer, Hackett & Co.
The report comes at a time when the mental health board is seeking a 41 percent increase in its annual levy, to $28.2 million. The audit was commissioned by a tax levy review committee, which must recommend a levy amount to county commissioners next week for the November ballot.
The current tax levy, which raises $20 million a year, costs the owner of a $100,000 home $36.60 in property taxes annually. The tax rate per home has not been calculated for the proposed new levy amount.
With state and federal funding, the board spends about $65 million each year, employs 35 staff members and serves 18,000 people annually.
Patrick Tribbe, executive director of the mental health board, said he hasn't acted on the findings about contracting agencies because there is no standard measure to compare them. A 10-city coalition is working on a standard measure now.
"It's not a matter of collecting the information, saying we don't want to use it and putting it on a shelf," he said Thursday. "We have looked very closely at the information. It's a question that when we move forward, we want to be on very sound footing."
Mr. Tribbe took the job in March 1997 and said it's one of the things he hasn't had a chance to improve.
Tax levy committee member Christopher Finney said it's time to stop blaming others, however.
"You can't attribute all these problems to past administrations," Mr. Finney said. "From what I can tell, the mental health board has done a good job, not a great job, in turning things around. They have not gotten over all their problems."
Other critical findings of the audit and committee include:
- High turnover of staff, including executive directors and chief financial officers.
- Long-term vacancies on the 16-member board;
- A 1997 financial audit completed a year after the fiscal year ended;
- $100,000 lost in potential Medicaid reimbursements in 1996 and 1997 because of poor procedures by contract agencies and delays by local and state authorities. The board did recover about $180,000 of the potential losses, Mr. Tribbe said.
The turnover, financial reports and Medicaid issues have been addressed, he said.
He expected some of these criticisms will show up in the tax levy committee's recommendations to county commissioners.
In the past, commissioners routinely placed levies on the ballot without much prior scrutiny. Reforms have led to applicant agencies actually signing contracts with the county, promising to fix problems.
Meanwhile, the levy review committee is poring over financial reports from the mental health board in an effort to come up with a figure for the levy amount.
Mr. Tribbe called the 41percent increase a "bare bones budget" that will allow the board to maintain service levels, handle expected increases in the number of children who need services, and build a three-month reserve fund.
