Special education: funding.

Existing law, the Mental Health Services Act, an initiative measure enacted by the voters as Proposition 63, establishes the Mental Health Services Fund to fund specified county mental health programs. The act provides that all moneys in the Mental Health Services Fund are continuously appropriated to the State Department of Mental Health. The act may be amended only by a 23 vote of both houses of the Legislature and only so long as the amendment is consistent with and furthers the intent of the act. This bill would require the department to allocate $57,000,000 of those moneys to county mental health departments for purposes of providing special education services, thereby making an appropriation. The bill also would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction and county mental health directors to jointly convene a technical working group to develop a transitional program to transfer the responsibilities associated with providing special education services from county mental health departments to the State Department of Education. This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the Mental Health Services Act. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.