) - The City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to approve a $298 million budget, rejecting a proposal to reprogram mental health funds devoted to AlaPointe Health.
“This is day one,” he told FOX10 News after the vote. “I’m not gonna stop this endeavor. The people are not happy about this. And it’s the facts are going to come out the facts have been hidden.”proposed by Mayor Sandy Stimpson Jones reeled off AltaPointe’s annual profits – $7.4 million in 2018, $7.2 million in 2019, $11 million in 2020. He said the city’s $600,000 is about 5 percent of the system’s excess revenue and a tiny fraction of its overall $140 million budget.
AltaPointe Chief Executive Officer Tuerk Schlesinger disputed the councilman’s assertions. He said the annual profits are misleading because they partly are due to pension accounting. He also said the system constantly uses that money to repair damaged buildings and equipment. He said AltaPointe is doing more, not less. He said it had 80,000 calls for new services last year and averages about 150 mental health patients at its hospitals.