‘A nice holiday gift’: Wheeling Township board approves long-awaited mental health tax

More than three years after voters approved the referendum for it, Wheeling Township trustees Tuesday approved the first property tax levy for the township’s mental health board.

The mental health board will distribute the $1.5 million to agencies providing services related to mental health, substance use disorders and intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Township Supervisor Maria Zeller Brauer said the mental health board has already received 24 applications.

The vote was taken before a nearly empty room, a contrast to past meetings, during which advocates pleaded with a previously elected board to fund the mental health panel.

Some of those advocates are now on the board newly elected in April. The previous board, on the advice of counsel, had maintained trustees could not levy the tax because the referendum did not include wording required by the tax cap law.

For an average household with a home valued between $350,000 and $400,000, the additional cost to township taxpayers for the mental health levy will be approximately $35 annually.

The township's total levy, including the general town and road management funds, amounts to approximately $4.9 million.

“This is what we ran on. This is what we told the voters we were going to do. This is what they voted for,” Brauer said. “And I feel that we're doing what the residents have asked us to do.”

Township Trustee John Geier, one of the people behind the citizen-initiated referendum for the mental health board, said the milestone shows what can happen when people don’t give up.

“I'm proud to be a part of something that has been in the works since voters passed that in 2022,” Township Trustee Sheri Williams said. “We campaigned on that, and to see (the levy) pass this evening was a nice holiday gift.”