MENDOCINO CO., 11/3/26 — Mendocino County budgeted $1.4 million too little this year for the private company that provides medical care at the county jail. On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors approved the money to cover it. The vote was 5-0. The board did not discuss it.
The company is NaphCare. It works under a contract with the Sheriff’s Office and has held the county’s jail medical contract since at least 2017. In 2022 it beat one other bidder, Wellpath, to keep the job.
Fixing the budget shortfall was part of the county’s first-quarter budget report. That report was listed on the agenda as a regular item, with 45 minutes set aside for a staff presentation. Instead, the board added it to the consent calendar.
The consent calendar is the list of items a board votes on all at once, with no presentation and no debate, unless one of the supervisors pulls it for discussion. The consent calendar is meant for routine business. Any supervisor can pull an item, and on Tuesday, no one pulled the budget report.
After the correction, the jail’s budget for medical and dental services now rises from $5,868,137 to $7,270,278, an increase of $1,402,141. The note beside the number in the county’s spreadsheet says: “The separate NaphCare JBCT contract was budgeted at an incorrect amount.”
JBCT stands for jail-based competency treatment. It’s a state program for jail inmates who have been found mentally unfit to stand trial. The treatment is meant to get their cases moving again. The California Department of State Hospitals pays counties to run it.
The $1.4 million comes from two places. The county now expects $788,716 more from the state for the program than it planned on in June. The other $625,298 comes from the Sheriff’s Office, which had money left over because it got $627,298 more in grants than expected. One of those is a Proposition 64 grant paid for by the state cannabis tax. The report says the state money and the Sheriff’s Office savings cover the whole $1.4 million, so the county doesn’t have to find new money to pay for it.
The report doesn’t say how or why the contract was budgeted $1.4 million low, who signed off on it or when.
A search of the board’s records turns up no vote on a separate NaphCare contract for the competency program. In January 2023 the board gave NaphCare a three-year, $15.9 million contract for jail medical care. That contract included the competency program, with its $2,081,266.50 share to be paid back by the state. The same vote let the sheriff sign changes to the contract as long as the total didn’t change.
The state money for the program has grown. The last two state agreements the board approved were for $614,384 in 2024-25 and $712,283 in 2025-26. This year’s budget counts on $2,710,591 from the state.
The same budget package cut $250,000 from construction of the jail’s mental health wing and added $94,500 for its equipment.
The main NaphCare contract runs out Dec. 31. The 2022 bid allowed two one-year extensions. The county has used one.