Bexar County’s local mental health authority is facing staff cuts and eliminating its methadone treatment program in response to $4.5 million in COVID-19 economic recovery funds drying up.

This fiscal year, which started on Sept. 1, the Center for Healthcare Services figures it will provide 2,800 fewer people looking for mental health and addiction recovery services after losing $2.4 million in federal funding for mental health and another $2.1 million in substance use programs.

The agency serves around 38,000 people every year.

The local mental health authority’s CEO, Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison, said that funding for mental health beds has remained stagnant amid hospital closures in recent years.

All together, inadequate funding for beds and loss of Biden-era funds means the local mental

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