San Diego County’s $7.36 billion budget for the next fiscal year includes hundreds of millions of dollars to tackle behavioral health, homelessness and environmental issues.
Public safety spending is up a quarter-billion dollars over the current year budget under the final version, from about $2.25 billion for the current year to $2.5 billion in the coming year. That boost includes $130 million in spending for health care in county jails, which have come under scrutiny for high rates of in-custody deaths in recent years.
Instead of leaving patients with mental illness or substance abuse issues cycling in and out of emergency rooms, the board aims to “really build out a broad system of care that recognizes the very real nature of mental health, that changes our approach to addiction with the desire to get people well and give them an opportunity to live lives that are thriving and stable,” Fletcher said.
Might want to check that decimal point