Permanent trust needed for behavioral health

When I first joined NAMI Montana, I didn’t understand the tight relationship between the overall economy, the state budget, and the life-saving care that individual Montana families receive across the state. The state budget was deep in the red based upon a number of factors that had nothing to do with anyone in Montana.

Both political parties agreed that hard sacrifices were necessary and one of the hardest sacrifices was the enactment of deep, system-changing cuts to mental health services.

The brutal lesson that NAMI Montana learned through that difficult process was that one really bad budget season can rip up the roots of a healthcare system and decades of hard-fought policy wins that helped build it.

In 2024, Montana has the opportunity to build a safety net for its critical mental health and developmental disabilities system. This opportunity opened up with an amazing budget surplus facing Gov. Greg Gianforte and the last Legislature. They used this opportunity to set aside $300 million in to improve Montana’s mental health and developmental disabilities system.

Some of this one-time-only funding has been allocated towards investments in group homes, crisis services, and forensic care. These are essential investments and there are more essential investments to come, but I pray that we do not forget the hard lesson of 2017. 

Safety-net programs need safety nets to survive economic downturns. This is Montana’s opportunity to craft a financial safety net of a permanent $150 million trust for its behavioral health and developmental disabilities systems. The income from that trust will boost our system in the good years and cushion it in the down years for decades to come.

NAMI Montana is excited to work with Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature on this amazing opportunity.

Matt Kuntz is the Executive Director of NAMI Montana.