PORT ANGELES — Clallam County may hire a mental health social worker-counselor for its jail, using unspent tax revenues earmarked for services to people with brain disorders or developmental disabilities.
County commissioners on Monday discussed funding the position — roughly $20,000 in salary plus about $5,000 in benefits — from a 2-cents-per $1,000 tax the county collects under a state law.
Revenues from the tax are unpredictable, said Willie Burer, county disability programs director, but the Developmental Disabilities Program doesn’t spend all the money.
As of June 30, it had amassed a surplus balance of nearly $62,000.
“Currently we are not fully expending the money,” said Iva Burks, county health and human services director and Burer’s boss.
“We would like to put a mental health program into the jail.”
Nevertheless, Commissioner Steve Tharinger, D-Dungeness, told them to put the proposition to the Developmental Disabilities Advisory Council. It will meet on Sept. 7.
Hargrove Bill
Tharinger also asked county Health and Human Services officials if a jail counseling program wouldn’t better be funded by a tax collected under what has become known as the Hargrove Bill.
Named after its author, state Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, the one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax produces about $100,000 a year for mental health initiatives in Clallam County.
Whatever the source of the funds, Tharinger said, “I think you’ve highlighted a real need.”
Clallam County’s jail often is the only secure facility where law enforcement officers can put people acting out from brain disorders.
Sixty percent of the medicine dispensed in the jail is psychiatric medication, according to Burks, and at least 10 percent of jail inmates have brain disorders, said Peter Casey.
Casey is executive director of Peninsula Community Mental Health Center, which would hire the jail social worker-counselor.
The person would be “somebody with skills not only to conduct assessments but to provide ongoing treatment,” he said Monday.