Several non-profits are proposing adding a state-wide wireless fee to pay for mental health crisis services like the suicide hotline, mobile crisis and the Urgent Crisis Centers for children.
In a policy brief published in March, Jeff Vanderploeg, president and CEO of the Child Health and Development Institute, and Gary Steck, Chief Executive Officer of Wellmore Behavioral Health, argued that a telecommunications fee would be a way of securing long-term funding for these services without having to take more money from the state budget.
Eight states, including California, Colorado, Delaware, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Virginia and Washington have adopted a fee to pay for 988, and six additional states have proposed the idea in their state legislatures. The fees range from six cents to 60 cents depending on the state.
In Connecticut, the 988 hotline is currently funded by a combination federal grants and funding from the Department of Children and Families. In 2022, the establishment of a wireless fee of 75 cents was included in a wide-ranging children’s mental health bill, but was removed before the bill was passed.
Instead, the state set aside money from its budget to fund the hotline and mobile crisis services to supplement federal dollars. The state put aside $2.2 million in 2024 and $3.1 million in 2025 to fund the 988 lifeline. The lifeline also received about $3 million each of those years from the federal government.
“My understanding is that that [federal] grant is going to end relatively soon. So 988 is definitely on the list of services that are in danger of not being sustained unless we come up with a more sustainable funding solution,” Vanderploeg told CT Examiner.
Steck told CT Examiner that he was also concerned about funding for the four Urgent Crisis Centers for young people, which have been funded entirely by federal coronavirus funds set to expire in 2026. An expansion of mobile crisis services to 24/7 operations was also paid for using coronavirus funds.
“It’s a core service. How do you undo crisis services? You don’t. I mean, if anything, what’s happened in the last five, seven, 10 years is that there’s been such an explosion in the need for these things,” said Steck.
In May, legislators allocated an additional $7 million to the Urgent Crisis Centers as part of a bill distributing the last of the coronavirus relief funds in the state’s possession. The state is also looking for a location for a fifth Urgent Crisis Center in Eastern Connecticut.
Although a federal law allows for a cell phone fee to fund not just 988, but other crisis intervention services, not all lawmakers are in favor of the idea.
State Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, ranking member on the legislature’s Finance Committee, told CT Examiner that she didn’t think an additional fee was the way to go.
“I am constantly wary of putting new taxes on our residents,” said Cheeseman. Regarding the Urgent Crisis Centers being supported with federal coronavirus funding, Cheseeman said the legislature needed to look for the funding in its own budget.
“Budgeting is about priorities. And if this is a priority of the state, we will find the funding,” she said.
Marc-Yves Regis, spokesperson for State Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, chair of the Finance Committee, said that Horn would “gladly look at the proposal next year” but that she currently did not have any comment.
Vanderploeg said that services like mobile crisis and the Urgent Care Centers are critical because they make it possible for children and teenagers to avoid having to spend long periods of time waiting for care in Emergency Departments.
“When you have a really good and well functioning and well funded mobile crisis service system, you’re able to avoid a lot of unpleasant situations that young people can face when they’re in a behavioral health crisis,” said Vanderploeg.
Steck noted that the shortage of hospital beds for children going through behavioral health crises meant that the system needed to be better at catching struggling young people early on.
“Just a conversation”
Lisa Tepper Bates, CEO of United Way, which runs the 988 call line, said that she also viewed the idea of a telecommunications fee as a potential option for funding both 988 and mobile crisis.
Last year, 988 received about 42,500 calls, and the line is on track to receive 50,000 in 2024 — an 18 percent increase.
Tepper Bates said that in addition to having their staff take phone calls, they were also working to transfer text and chat services from a national center to local centers in Connecticut. As a result, she said, their staff has increased by close to 30 percent over the last year. About one-fifth of the text and chat messages they receive are from people under the age of 18.
Despite 988 being a hotline for people in intense mental health crises, Tepper Bates said that only about one percent of the calls they take end with a phone call to 911.
“Mental health is not an area where police response or law enforcement response is the most effective tool, and the police would tell you the same thing,” said Tepper Bates. “So the fact that we are able to have this service that is 988, and that through that service only 1 percent of our calls really need that higher level 911 first response or potentially police response — It means that we are actually effectively serving people and diverting from 911.”
In some cases, she said, they’ll try to get the person’s agreement to send mobile crisis to them, or ask if that person would feel comfortable getting themselves to the Emergency Room. Other times, it might be someone struggling with depression who has hit a rough patch.
“Sometimes for that client, just a conversation with an empathetic, understanding, informed other human being to create a plan as to what they can do to feel better – if they have a therapist, how do they get through to that next appointment. And that in itself, that conversation, building a plan to help them stabilize, may be sufficient,” said Tepper Bates.
United Way is also the gateway to mobile crisis services for children, through the 211 call line. The agency took 12,400 calls in 2023, and expects to take about 13,200 this year — although the numbers are still far below pre-pandemic levels, according to a quarterly report on Mobile Crisis produced by The Mobile Crisis Performance Improvement Center.
Mobile crisis received $8.6 million in 2023, 2024 and 2025 to expand its operations to 24/7 care. The money came from federal coronavirus funds.
“Their toughest days”
Since its opening in September, the Urgent Crisis Center in New London has seen about 240 children from towns across Eastern Connecticut. Erin Saylor, chief operating officer for the Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, which runs the Center, said the majority of children coming to them are suicidal, or expressing suicidal thoughts. They’ve also seen children with anxiety, depression and who have dealt with trauma.
Tabassum Ali, the Associate Medical Director for Wellmore, which runs the Urgent Crisis Center in Waterbury, said that in the last month, the number of children they’ve had come in has increased from a few visits a week to a few visits per day.
“I think traditionally we said we anticipate children’s services may be decreasing as the spring comes out because of stress in school, but on our end, we’re actually kind of seeing an opposite phenomenon,” Ali told CT Examiner.
Like Saylor, Ali said many of the children come in thinking about suicide or self-harm. She said schools have also been asking the centers to support students who are being disruptive in the classroom.
Ali said that it’s “magical” to be able to support the children and teens who come in – setting them up with a treatment plan and getting them connected to programs that can support them.
“These are really their toughest days and their toughest moments, and for them to be able to build their trust in our team and share as much as they do and really get something out of it is really a phenomenal process to watch happen,” said Ali.
But crisis services are only one piece of a mental health system that is short on services across the spectrum. After children visit the Urgent Crisis Centers, they are often referred to outpatient or partial hospitalization programs, recommended for in-home services or sent to other mental health specialists in the community, depending on what they need. But many of these providers and services have waitlists, which delays children’s ability to get necessary services.
“The system is weak,” said Steck. “We absolutely have struggled with finding spots for all the home-based services in Connecticut. There’s wait lists for everything. [Intensive Outpatient Programs], [Partial Hospitalization Programs] — [it’s] very difficult to access that. Specialty stuff — services for the autistic community, substance use issues for adolescents — it’s very, very difficult.”
Currently, IICAPS, the intensive in-home service model that has teams dispatched across most of the state, has a waitlist of over 500 children. Staff at the Urgent Crisis Center in New London said that community specialists, particularly those specializing in techniques like EMDR or play therapy, tend to have waitlists as well. A report from the Child Health and Development Institute found that children in 2023 waited an average of 26 days to be admitted to Extended Day Treatment programs, another type of outpatient program that provides therapy.
Steck told CT Examiner that the low Medicaid rates are a critical part of the problem, resulting in low salaries for people working in behavioral health and causing the programs to be understaffed. Grants from the state of Connecticut, he said, also haven’t kept up with the general cost of living. Even in mobile crisis, he said, they have the money to hire people, but haven’t been able to get to a point where they are fully staffed.
“I think we live in a state that has the potential of a great behavioral health system, but it is not a great system right now,” said Steck. “It is under huge stress. It is funded in a mishmash way that doesn’t make sense. And it is underfunded in some real core ways.”