LEBANON — Warren County commissioners are asking the local mental health agency not to seek a levy this fall, out of concern that it could hurt another agency's shot at a levy.

IF YOU GO

What: Mental Health Recovery Services of Warren & Clinton Counties board meeting.    Where: 610 W. Main St., Wilmington.    When: 5 p.m. Wednesday.

        “People are just taxed to death,” Commissioner Mike Kilburn said Friday.

        Added Commissioner Pat South: “The general resident doesn't always know the difference between MRDD and Mental Health (Recovery Services), and I'm fearful that if both levies run at the same time, both will lose. And it's not the agencies that lose, it's the client.”

        MRDD is Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities, the agency that helps the mentally retarded with jobs, housing and other services. Mental Health helps Warren and Clinton county residents who have mental and emotional illnesses and substance addictions.

        The MRDD board decided in late May to ask voters for a 4-mill replacement levy that would update property values for two existing levies. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 house an extra $61 a year.

        It would be MRDD's first levy request in seven years, Mrs. South noted, while Mental Health has been on the ballot every year for several years.

        Mental Health passed a renewal last fall, but it will expire at the end of 2003. This is the only chance to pass a 1-mill replacement levy — which would base the tax rate on current property values instead of 1986 values — Executive Director Bill Harper said.

        That gives Mental Health time to seek another renewal levy — which doesn't change the tax rate — next fall if the replacement doesn't pass.

        “This is our one shot to request a replacement,” Mr. Harper said Friday. “We really don't have any other choice but to propose this.”

        The Mental Health levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 house $35 a year, he said — a $14 increase.

        Both agencies say they face deficits by 2003 if they don't pass levies.

        The commissioners agreed Thursday to allow MRDD's levy on the November ballot. The Mental Health board does not need the commissioners' approval to seek a levy.

        However, newly appointed board member Ernie Lawson — mayor of Waynesville and a mental health professional — said the commissioners' request has merit.

        “I think it would be difficult for both (levies) to pass,” Mr. Lawson said.

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