Court-ordered evaluation costs jump for county
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Chautauqua County is considering a request to use hundreds of thousands of dollars from its reserves to help pay for required psychological evaluations of individuals who have been arrested.
Trish McClennan, the Deputy Director of Mental Hygiene and Social Services, appeared at some county legislature committee meetings to request $400,000 for court ordered forensic evaluations for competency and court ordered forensic hospitalizations.
"When an individual is brought to the court, the judge may question whether or not that individual has the capacity to understand their charges against them," McClennan explained.
If the judge does not believe they have the capacity, he or she can order an evaluation that has to be done by a psychologist or psychiatrist. "Two of these have to be done. If there's a tie-breaker on whether or not they have the capacity, a third person is (brought in)," McClennan said.
Years ago, the state split the cost with counties. Now counties must pay the evaluation costs.
According to McClennan, because of bail reform, the court ordered evaluations have increased.
She said that is because when individuals were in jail, some were given medication to help stabilize their mental health before they would go to court. Now, individuals are being released earlier, so they aren't on medication as long.
McClennan said if the individual is deemed to not understand the changes, the judge will then order that person to go to a psychiatric center, and the county is required to pay for that bill as well. "You can't bill insurance for this. That is about $1,200 a day," she said.
McClennan said the person is to remain there until it is determined he or she understands the charges placed against them. "A person could be there for a month. They could be there for nine months. There is no predicting," she said.
McClennan said right now they have two people in a psychiatric center in Rochester and one more has been ordered to go there.
McClennan said in the beginning of the year they budgeted $500,000 for these court ordered evaluations. As of July, they had spent $487,000 of that budgeted amount. She believes the $400,000 request will get them through the end of the year.
Should the department be approved to get the $400,000 and not spend that entire amount, the balance would be returned to the fund balance.
McClennan said she doesn't have other money in her own budget to cover the expense, in part because so much of her money is from matching funds.
During the Audit and Control Committee meeting, Legislator Fred Johnson, R-Westfield, said he was opposed to the proposal because he doesn't want to see the fund balance used. Instead, he wants to see other departments have their budgets reduced.
Even though Johnson voted against it in committee, there was enough support for the resolution to go to the full legislature. A final vote will take place Wednesday.