The Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Mental Health is pleased to announce that we will be issuing $22M in capacity grants for Community Mental Health Providers. This is to reduce interruptions in services by maintaining pre-pandemic service capacity. This program will also assist with staff retention by: offering the ability to provide retention payments to direct service staff; covering recruitment efforts; and covering other related expenses to attract and retain direct service staff. Grant funds may also be used to provide mental health services to unfunded or underfunded persons. In the event funding is used to cover these services they are subject to the requirement that IDHS/DMH is the funder of last resort and that other potential reimbursement, including Medicaid, Medicare, other insurance, or self-pay, is billed to defray the cost of maintaining capacity for mental health services.
There will not be a competitive process to obtain this grant as the amounts are based on the higher of either the difference between FY21 and FY19 Medicaid FFS or 4.9% of a grantee's FY22 DMH grants. It is important to note that federally funded programs were excluded from this calculation.
While the Division is preparing the grant documents, a notice will soon be posted for this non-competitive grant opportunity on the DHS/DMH website at https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=130322. The name of this grant program is 999 Sustainability Grant. In order to receive your portion of the $22M allocated to this program, you will need to follow all normal grant requirements which will include completing and submitting: a grant application, a budget in the CSA system, pre-qualification documents, risk assessments, and indirect cost rate election in the Crowe CARS system. You will also be required to acquire an Illinois.gov account and be registered in the applicable IDHS and State systems if you do not already have this access. Complete instructions, along with contact information, will also be included with this grant opportunity posting on the website, should you have any questions. The amount of grant funding that will be available to you will be provided in advance so that you may plan your expenditures and will also be included on the grant application document. These grants will have a start date of July 1, 2021 so that you may apply the grant funds to prior expenses back to the beginning of the fiscal year.
Thank you for serving the State's most vulnerable population during this unprecedented time.
