REPORT/RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
AND RECORD OF ACTION
May 5, 2026
FROM
JOSHUA DUGAS, Acting Director, Department of Behavioral Health
SUBJECT
Title
Amendment to Contract with Star View Behavioral Health, Inc. for Youth in Residential Placement
End
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Recommendation
Approve Amendment No. 1 to Contract No. 24-556 with Star View Behavioral Health, Inc. for the provision of Youth in Residential Placement services, amending the provisional payment language, updating standard contract language, and increasing the total contract amount by $1,600,000, from $6,500,000 to $8,100,000, with no change to the contract period of July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2029.
(Presenter: Joshua Dugas, Acting Director, 252-5142)
Body
COUNTY AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Provide for the Safety, Health and Social Service Needs of County Residents.
Pursue County Goals and Objectives by Working with Other Agencies and Stakeholders
FINANCIAL IMPACT
This item does not impact Discretionary General Funding (Net County Cost). The recommended $1,600,000 increase for Youth in Residential Placement (YRP) services is funded by Federal Financial Participation Medi-Cal and existing ongoing 2011 Realignment funds. Adequate appropriation and revenue have been included in the Department of Behavioral Health's (DBH) 2025-26 budget and will be included in future recommended budgets.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
DBH is responsible for providing mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) services to San Bernardino County (County) residents experiencing severe mental illness and/or SUD. The current contract for YRP services at Star View Adolescent Center (SVAC) operates under a five-year contract with Star View Behavioral Health (SVBH) and is scheduled to end on June 30, 2029. All youth served under this contract are County dependents and wards, and placing agencies remain actively involved in both treatment planning and discharge planning for these youth.
Assembly Bill (AB) 1051, passed in 2021, revised state law concerning presumptive transfers. As further amended by AB 551 and effective July 1, 2024, the presumption of responsibility for arranging and providing Specialty Mental Health Services remains with the placing county unless specific conditions are met. While the County has maintained fiscal responsibility for children and youth placed at SVBH since 2009, the enactment of AB 1051 codifies and mandates that the placing county has fiscal responsibility for the placement.
SVBH provides services to County dependents and wards who have County Medi-Cal coverage while placed at SVAC. This center consists of two placements: (1) a Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF), and (2) a Community Treatment Facility (CTF), both of which provide mental health services to children and youth in residential placement who have complex diagnoses, require a higher level of treatment, and require 24 hours a day, seven days a week care in a secured and locked setting. Children and youth who are seriously emotionally disturbed and demonstrate the need for this level of care are referred by the Department of Children and Family Services, the Probation Department, and DBH, and are subsequently screened and evaluated by the County Interagency Placement Council.
Typically, a child or youth is initially placed in the PHF for stabilization and once stabilized, is transitioned to a CTF for continued treatment. The estimated monthly cost of placement per child/youth may be up to:
• $43,562 for services provided in the PHF, and
• $16,420 for services provided in a CTF.
Star View served nine unduplicated youth during the first year of the contract (2024-25). The trend has been that youth stay in the PHF portion of the facility longer than in previous years, and this trend shows a 1.8% increased length of stay in the PHF portion of the facility between 2024-25 and 2025-26.
DBH anticipates that, effective 2025-26, SVBH will:
• Continue to provide YRP services to approximately nine unduplicated clients annually
• Average a cost of $188,889 per youth
• Provide services for an average length of stay of approximately nine months
SVBH has projected an increase in service activity based on previous service patterns and has increased its rates for 2025-26 to be consistent with their contract expectations and support the intensive needs of County youth. Since 2023-24 the rates related to the PHF have increased 13.7% while the rates for services within the CTF have increased by 3.1%. The new rates are within an appropriate range when compared to the rates developed by the California Department of Health Care Services.
Approval of this amendment will increase the total funding for each of the remaining four years of the contract, update standard contract language, and amend the provisional payment language for the provision of YRP services. This will allow DBH to continue providing these critical services without interruption. At this time, SVBH is the only children’s PHF and CTF provider under contract with DBH to serve this population.
DBH will also implement mechanisms to regularly 1) review client service data and progress, conduct site visits and annual monitoring to ensure performance and compliance standards of the contract(s) are met; 2) review applicable reimbursement claims and claims data ensure fidelity and accuracy of service billing and optimization of Medi-Cal reimbursement in alignment with contract terms and Department of Health Care Services billing requirements; and 3) review provider invoices administratively and programmatically to ensure client and/or bed counts are accurate prior to payment processing.
On June 25, 2024 (Item No. 39), the Board of Supervisors approved Contract No. 24-556 with SVBH for the provision of YRP services, in the amount of $6,500,000, for the contract period of July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2029. DBH did not conduct a formal procurement for these specialty mental health placement services as there were only two agencies in the State that provided this level of service to this population. DBH has contracted with this agency through non-competitive contract agreements since 2009, as approved by Purchasing.
PROCUREMENT
N/A
REVIEW BY OTHERS
This item has been reviewed by Behavioral Health (Marianna Martinez, Administrative Supervisor II, 383-3940) on March 19, 2026; County Counsel (Charles Phan, Supervising Deputy County Counsel, 387-5455) on March 25, 2026; and County Finance and Administration (Iliana Rodriguez, Administrative Analyst, 386-8392 and Joon Cho, Chief Administrative Analyst, 658-1812) on April 20, 2026.