— — The Legislature OK’d a sheriff’s office takeover of mental health contracts for Niagara County Jail on Tuesday.

Legislators did so begrudgingly, after learning the citizen-staffed board that oversees the county’s mental health department had already decided to dump the contracts.

Technically, the Legislature approved a budget amendment to give the sheriff’s office $25,000 more in 2010. That’s the estimated cost of employing a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a registered nurse on call at the jail from Oct. 23 through the end of the year, according to Sheriff James Voutour.

Voutour said he learned late last month that the citizen-led Community Services Board, which by state law directs the county’s provision of mental health services in the community, had voted to end its contracts with the inmate-serving professionals. According to the CSB’s resolution — its first one this year — it did so in light of reduced state funding for mental health services and the consequent need to drop “nonmandated” services.

Voutour and County Manager Greg Lewis both said they don’t know any more than that. Mental Health Services Director Antoinette Lech’s letter to Voutour simply informed him the jail-based professionals will not be paid by her department anymore as of mid-October, per the board’s decision.

The jail can’t not offer mental health services to inmates, Voutour said; their provision also is state law. He said he needed the Legislature’s OK on the budget amendment so he can go out and negotiate a new contract with providers.

If the CSB’s decision not to fund services for inmates is permanent, the sheriff’s department will be stuck funding them to the tune of about $130,000 next year, Voutour estimated.

All but $300,000 of Mental Health’s $4.3 million budget is covered by the state, through reimbursement, according to Budget Director Dan Huntington.

It’s possible the state is no longer reimbursing Mental Health for inmate services, Lewis said. Lech is said to be drawing a distinction between a “community” and an “institution,” meaning a jail is an institution, not a community, which is Mental Health’s target audience.

Legislators took a burn to Lech’s sudden cancellation notice and demanded the chance to grill her, and the CSB chairman, at upcoming Community Safety and Security and Administration committee meetings. Clyde Burmaster, R-Ransomville, said he objects to a Mental Health “bait and switch” in which it presents a budget to the county with a line item for inmate services, then cancels the service and puts the money elsewhere.

“This definitely is a bigger issue than at first glance,” Paul Wojtaszek, R-North Tonawanda, chairman of the Community Safety and Security committee, said.

In other business, the Legislature:

• Approved the sale of 142 county tax-foreclosed properties to residents and a few limited liability companies. The properties were auctioned by the county Aug. 28 and brought in $715,160. Another 34 properties were reclaimed by former owners before the auction; the county recovered nearly $422,000 in past-due taxes, penalties and interest through these buybacks.

• Approved a local law sanctioning the public administrator’s use of county Treasurer’s office staff and space in exchange for the county receiving 20 percent of the public administrator’s commissions. The public administrator disposes of the estates of residents who died without leaving a will or naming an executor. By state law, the county treasurer is the public administrator in counties where a separate office doesn’t exist, and the treasurer individually is compensated by payment of a portion of estate sale proceeds. The local law means the county also, for the first time, will be compensated for its contributions to estate administration, Treasurer Kyle Andrews has said.

• Acknowledged receipt of a state grant of $26,572 for the Niagara County Snowmobile Federation of Snowmobile Clubs. The county acted as the private federation’s municipal sponsor so it could seek money from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The county will pocket $1,200 of the grant as an administrative fee; the rest is for federation clubs’ trail development and maintenance efforts.