For Immediate Release: Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Montgomery Council committees
to discuss Mental Health Courts
Also on Wednesday, April 19: transportation issues,
monitored exchange and supervision center
ROCKVILLE, Md., April 18, 2017—The Montgomery County Council’s Public Safety Committee and its Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 19, will review the Fiscal Year 2018 operating budget request of the County’s Mental Health Courts program and the monitored exchange and supervised visitation center for child custody cases. The worksession is part of the Council’s review of County Executive Ike Leggett’s recommended budget.
The Council and its committees will review the recommended budget over the next five weeks as they work toward adopting a budget for the new fiscal year. The Council is scheduled to reach tentative agreement on the budget on May 18 and to formally adopt the budget on May 25. The new budget will go into effect on July 1.
The Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Marc Elrich and includes Councilmembers Sidney Katz and Tom Hucker, and the HHS Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember George Leventhal and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Craig Rice, will meet in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The meeting will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM). The channel can be viewed on Cable Channels 996 (high definition) and 6 (standard definition) on Comcast; Channels 1056 (HD) and 6 (SD) on RCN; and Channel 30 on Verizon.
The session also will be available live via streaming through the Council web site at http://tinyurl.com/z9982v8 .
The Mental Health Courts program started this past December/January. The program seeks to work with individuals facing criminal charges, but whose overriding problems stem from their mental health issues.
The District Court Mental Health Court has 34 people accepted into the special program that includes counseling and incentives. The Circuit Court Mental Health Court has accepted eight people.
The District Court Mental Health Court is currently not at capacity, but its biggest immediate challenge is keeping up with referrals.
The County Executive is recommending FY18 funding of $250,000 in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to open and operate a supervised exchange and visitation center for use in child custody cases. The recommendation for such a center was made by Court Watch Montgomery in its May 2014 report.
Last November, County Executive Leggett informed the Council that he had read the Court Watch Montgomery report and agreed with the need. He asked DHHS to work with the stakeholders involved and develop a plan for a center. An appropriate location in the Rockville area had been identified. It has two entrances and two parking lots. The center will begin operations in October.
At 9:45 a.m. in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Berliner and includes Councilmembers Hucker and Nancy Floreen, will review the FY18 budget request of the Department of Transportation.
Among the issues the committee will address is funding for resurfacing of residential roads.
Last fall the Council added $8 million above the County Executive’s recommendation for residential resurfacing in FY17. For FY18, the County Executive recommended a total of $5.1 million for road resurfacing. This would resurface about 27 lane-miles. However, Councilmembers Berliner and Hucker are advocating adding $6.8 million more to this project in FY18, which would bring the funding level to $11.9 million, the same as in FY17. This would resurface about 63 lane-miles. They point out that this still would be far less than the $34.4 million annual funding level that the Infrastructure Maintenance Task Force reports is optimal for residential and rural road resurfacing.
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Release ID: 17-131