Vote-by-mail reform, mental health, and 911 funding top counties' priorities for 2025

Yahoo

31-01-2025

Sherene Hess, president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, speaks about the organization's legislative priorities for 2025 in the state Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Peter Hall/Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
Pennsylvania county commissioners have called on state lawmakers to address flaws in the commonwealth's vote-by-mail law and increase funding for mental health care and 911 services.
Local election officials continue to scramble to meet mail ballot deadlines and face legal challenges more than five years after voting by mail became an option for every Pennsylvania voter, members of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) said.
'Achieving these priorities will not only improve county government, but more importantly, they will improve our communities and the lives of those we serve across the entire state,' Sherene Hess, president of CCAP's board of directors, said.
Hess and other members of CCAP's board gathered in Harrisburg on Wednesday to lobby members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly as the 2025-2026 legislative session gets underway and days before Gov. Josh Shapiro is set to roll out his proposed budget.
Pennsylvania's 67 counties are largely responsible for delivering services to residents that the state and federal governments pay for.
The counties also administer elections, which have become more complicated since former Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 77 to allow absentee voting without an excuse in 2019. Voting by mail has been popular, but has also been the subject of unfounded claims of fraud and legal challenges.
'Act 77 remains unclear, or in some cases silent, on how counties should address certain situations,' CCAP board member Joseph Kantz, a Snyder County commissioner, said.
County election officials want the law to be clear about whether to count mail-in ballots that are returned without secrecy envelopes or with missing or incorrect dates, Kantz said. Although state and federal courts have ruled several times on that question, the state Supreme Court recently agreed to take up the question again.
Election officials have also been summoned to court over decisions about notifying mail ballot voters that they have made disqualifying mistakes and whether they should be allowed to correct them or vote by provisional ballot.
The widespread adoption of voting by mail has placed additional pressure on election officials to ensure ballots are mailed out in a timely manner and to count them fast enough to avoid delays in reporting election results.
Allowing counties to prepare ahead of election day mail-in ballots to be counted would reduce that stress, 'particularly in a busy presidential year like we've just faced,' Kantz said.
Wolf vetoed an omnibus bill passed in 2021 that would have given election officials the additional time they want to process ballots because it also contained measures Democrats said would disenfranchise voters. Subsequent efforts to amend Act 77 in similar omnibus bills have failed.
Kantz said Wednesday that CCAP is looking for a fresh approach by addressing each of the issues in a separate piece of legislation.
Northampton County Commissioner Lori Vargo Heffner said that as the stigma surrounding mental illness and mental health treatment has continued to crumble, the need for significant increases in funding for such care has become more urgent.
Counties deliver mental health care including community residential programs, family based support, outpatient care and crisis intervention on behalf of the state.
'Counties have been able to continue to serve their residents, but are stretching the limited state funding to its breaking point,' Heffner said. 'It's not hyperbole to say that the lack of adequate state funding paired with increased demand has pushed the collapse of the community mental health system.'
In 2024, CCAP called for a $250 million increase in mental health funding. That would have been a fraction of the $1.6 billion in additional funding that a survey of counties found is necessary to fully fund community-based mental health services. Shapiro's first two budgets increased county mental health funding by a total of $40 million.
This year, CCAP is asking for $100 million more, Heffner said. That would allow the counties to maintain their systems and increase capacity, she said, noting that people seeking community-based mental health care report wait times of at least six months and often much longer.
'The unmet community need has created a growing population of individuals that have become involved with emergency departments, law enforcement and the criminal justice system when no appropriate diversion exists,' Heffner said. 'The remaining solutions are hospitals or incarceration, both of which are not appropriate for settings for mental health treatment and are very costly.'
In Shapiro's first budget passed in 2023, the legislature approved an increase in the 911 surcharge that cellphone subscribers pay each month to support emergency dispatch services. Hess, the CCAP president, said Wednesday that despite the increase, counties must fund a significant cost of transitioning to Next Generation 911 systems through local taxes.
The General Assembly must reauthorize the surcharge before it sunsets at the start of 2026 and CCAP is calling for an increase to between $2.14 and $2.20 a month.
'This is something that must be addressed,' Hess said. '911 call volume is increasing, and revenue from the 911 surcharge is failing to maintain pace with the system costs over the last several years.'
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency said the Shapiro administration is aware the surcharge does not cover the counties' full costs, but it is awaiting an efficiency study from the legislature that is required as part of the 2023 legislation. Because the larger surcharge only took effect last year, it's unclear how much revenue it generated.
'In 2023, the prior surcharge of $1.65 covered about 74% of all reported expenditures incurred to provide 911 service,' spokesperson Ruth Miller said. 'The remaining costs are paid by the counties through their general funds or other revenue sources.'
Next Generation 911 is a digital system that uses the internet to connect the public with public safety answering points, also known as 911 centers, through voice, text messaging and video. It also increases the ability of centers to handle higher volumes of calls for help during natural disasters and to automatically transfer callers to the appropriate centers using geolocation information.
'A strong, connected, 911 system is critical to ensuring services can still be provided efficiently in situations of mass emergency, and to keep up with the pace of ever changing technological advances,' Hess said.