Boulder County to consider mental health tax

Boulder County may seek to beef up its mental health response but whether the board of commissioners is seeking to build an acute care facility, such as recently completed by Larimer County, is unclear.

“The Boulder County commissioners are undertaking polling on the public’s support for a property tax increase to provide early intervention and treatment that address mental health and substance use disorders to increase community wellness for youth, families, and adults,” said Gloria Handyside, the Boulder County board’s communications director.

A copy of the polling question was not supplied by the commissioners’ office, though Handyside did note there is a fairly long row to hoe before any action can be taken.

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“If the commissioners do decide to introduce a ballot measure to enact this (or any) tax, it would go through a public hearing process (including public comment opportunities) before being placed on the ballot for voters,” she said.

Boulder County staff recently completed a “roadmap” for enhancing support for behavioral health, which sought input from more than 600 local subject matter experts. The roadmap also relied on “54 key informant interviews,” as well as input from people with life experience, and other community members.

The roadmap specifies addressing “cost barriers to accessing mental and behavioral health services by providing low or reduced cost services and evaluations or subsidizing cost for all Boulder County community members.”

The plan deals with a variety of issues, including drug withdrawal and youth suicide, and address those issues with training and programmatic goals, as well as noting the need for decentralized spaces.

While creating a centralized location for service does not appear to be a priority in the plan, it is addressed in the following potential solution:

“Create centralized intake location for inpatient substance use disorder treatment in which individuals can walk in for immediate help, find an open treatment bed, and go to treatment.”

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