SB 43 / Conservatorship Reform
The dust has settled and only two counties will implement SB 43 (Eggman) on 1/1/24: San Francisco and San Luis Obispo. However, several boards of supervisors (e.g., Santa Clara, Stanislaus) told staff that they didn’t necessarily want to wait until 1/1/26 to implement and that their expectation is that staff will return to them sooner than later with timelines for implementation in 2024 or 2025. In other SB 43 news, small and medium sized counties have identified to the Newsom Administration numerous updates to California regulations that should be updated especially with respect to facilities that take Medi-Cal and might ultimately accept conserved individuals with substance use disorders. In addition, various interest groups are requesting that, if Proposition 1 passes (see immediately below), that the $1.5 direct allocation to local governments get prioritized on Wall Street.
Proposition 1
According to the press, “over 70 percent of likely primary voters polled said they would approve Governor Newsom’s Proposition 1, on the March 5 ballot.” This poll is in addition to another poll reported in the Newsletter several weeks ago that had support for Proposition 1 at just under 70%. As you know, Proposition 1 will put to the voters a $6.38 billion bond measure to build new behavioral health housing and treatment settings for mental health and substance abuse, as well as ‘modernize’ the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) and revamp how the state prioritizes homelessness and mental illness.”