Board to Study Impact of Joint Agency on Funds

A sharply divided Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to form an “oversight committee” to determine which parts of the county’s mental health and welfare services departments could be operated jointly without losing federal funding.

County supervisors voted last April to merge the county’s Behavioral Health Department and Public Social Services Agency into a single agency. But they dismantled the superagency in December, after federal officials warned that it violated federal billing rules and that the county could lose up to $15 million in Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursements.

Tuesday, supervisors voted 3 to 2 to appoint Kathy Long and Judy Mikels to the oversight committee. Supervisors Frank Schillo and John Flynn argued that forming such a committee sends the wrong message to federal officials.

Auditors from the Federal Financing Administration Commission in San Francisco will visit the county at the end of the month to review billings at Ventura County Medical Center during the time the agencies were merged.

“The timing is really, really bad,” Flynn said. “Let’s solve the funding problem first.”

But Long and Mikels said parts of the merged agency were beneficial and would not threaten federal funding.

Supervisor Susan Lacey, the architect behind the merger of the two departments into the Human Services Agency, was the third vote in favor of the new committee.