HAMILTON - The Butler County Mental Health Board, which is planning to cut services by $1.2 million next month, is going to ask voters to approve a 1-mill levy on Nov. 5.

        If approved, the five-year levy would be the first mental health levy in the county in 17 years.

        The board will ask the county commissioners today

        to place the levy on the ballot. The commissioners are expected to approve the request.

        “I know there honestly is a critical need,” Commissioner Courtney Combs said. “And they're going for the minimum levy necessary. If they can convince voters that people who need treatment are going untreated, they have a good chance of passing it.”

        The levy would generate $6.1 million a year for five years and would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $30.63 more a year in property taxes.

        Two-thirds of the money would be earmarked for services to children and families, and the rest would be used for emergency services and treatment and support services for the severely mentally disabled.

        Passage of the levy could enable the board to restore the $1.2 million in services that will be cut in September, said John Staup, Mental Health Board executive director. The cutbacks couldn't wait until the November election, he said.

        “We have to make these now to remain solvent,” Mr. Staup said. “We have relied on our reserve funds in recent years. But now our rainy-day fund is depleted.”

        One of the casualties could be mental health services for schools, he said. The Mental Health Board has psychologists or counselors based in five Butler County school districts - Middletown, New Miami, Talawanda, Fairfield and Hamilton. It provides counseling for the alternative school programs for all county school districts.

        Most of these services could be eliminated, Mr. Staup said.

        The board's financial troubles stem from federal and state cutbacks, expiring grants and a 17-year drought since voters approved a mental health levy.

        Since 1985, the agency has failed four times to win voter approval for levy increases.

        In the 17 years since the last mental health levy victory, the county's population has increased 25 percent to 333,000, Mr. Staup said. “There has been tremendous growth in the county that has really outpaced the services of the Mental Health Board,” he said.

        The Mental Health Board had planned to hold back its levy until the May 2003 election so that it wouldn't conflict with the commissioners' proposed sales tax increase.

        But after the commissioners decided last month to refrain from placing the sales tax issue on the November ballot, county mental health officials felt comfortable having their levy on the November ballot.

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