County health officials to release a $24 million spending plan for mental health services.

Before the Tea Party popularized anti-tax sentiment, California voters in 2004 approved a 1-percent income tax increase on people earning more than $1 million a year. Since then, Prop. 63, or the Mental Health Services Act, has delivered billions of those bucks to counties to deliver mental health care.

The Monterey County Health Department (MHSA) releases its next three-year spending plan May 18, proposing how to allocate $24 million, almost entirely from state funds, to dozens of local nonprofits and programs next year. That amount is projected to grow to $26.2 million by 2017.

A 30-day comment period opens May 18. The plan then goes to the Mental Health Commission June 25 and to the county Board of Supervisors for final approval by the end of July.

The proposal includes a range of services, from temporary housing to crisis hotlines. “If we’re spending all the money on the deep end, we’re never going to get to do anything on the shallow end,” Mental Health Commission Chair Jesse Herrera said at an April 30 meeting.

The draft plan includes: $240,000 for United Way’s 2-1-1 phone line, which gives callers info on services like food stamps, health insurance and mental health clinics; $1.2 million to Drake House in Monterey, which houses 49 seniors with physical disabilities and mental illness; and $877,000 for the nonprofit Interim to hire staff at apartment buildings for severely mentally ill adults who were previously homeless or on the brink of becoming homeless.

“[The programs] wouldn’t exist without MHSA funding,” says Interim Executive Director Barbara Mitchell.

To view the plan and submit comments, visit http://bit.ly/mhsaplan between May 18 and June 15.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Mental Health Commission Chairman Jesse Herrera's last name. It is Herrera, not Hernandez as originally appeared.