Committee authorizes $181,776 in pass-through school-based mental health enhancement funding to two providers

Saratoga County’s Health and Human Services Committee approved June 3 two contract authorizations to pass state enhancement funds to community mental health providers operating school-based clinics.

Megan Johnson said the funds are part of school-based mental health satellite clinic enhancement allocations tied to the 2022–2023 State Office of Mental Health funding years. "These enhancement funds are intended to kind of help offset the costs that are not insurance reimbursable for those programs, so like supplies and materials for the clinicians who are in the schools, the time that they spend coordinating with the Committee on Special Education or with teachers, retention, recruitment fees," Johnson said.

Under the approvals, Parsons Child and Family Center will receive $112,528 for work at 13 school sites across four districts under its contract, and Behavioral Health Services North will receive $69,248 for services at eight sites within the Saratoga Springs City School District. Johnson said the awards help cover nonreimbursable expenses such as clinician supplies, coordination time with schools and recruitment/retention costs. The committee moved and approved the contract authorizations and related 2025 budget amendments by voice vote; no individual roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript.

County staff said the funds were part of earlier state allocations that had not been passed through to providers until now, and the county sought to deliver the money to agencies to support ongoing school-based mental health services.