On March 17th voters will be asked to approve a half-cent increase in our sales tax to provide a source of funding for mental health services in Winnebago County.
Advocates say the revenue from such a tax would allow Winnebago County to build a sustainable safety net for residents in need of mental health and addiction treatment services.
Today, Winnebago County is the largest urban area in Illinois without a stable source of local funding for mental health or addiction services. The region lost a critical element of mental health treatment when the state of Illinois shuttered Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford in 2012. Since then, the structure of state funding for mental health treatment has changed dramatically – funding that flows to Winnebago County has diminished, while the state has reduced funding for the last five years for addiction and mental health services.
Doing nothing will not make the problem go away, and the statistics tell the story.
In 2018, 235 people in Winnebago County lost their lives to overdoses or suicide. We have a drug overdose mortality rate that is twice higher than the state. Winnebago County has a 15% higher alcohol-impaired driving death rate than the state of Illinois. And at the same time, we have 27% fewer mental health providers per resident than the average Illinois county.
This is about my family. Your neighbors. Our young people. All of us have a responsibility to build a safer and healthier Rockford. Surveys and studies confirm a great service need. Help fill the need by creating a reliable, local funding stream.
I’m Dick Kunnertand that’s my perspective.