The Coos and Curry mental health departments are tentatively looking into  consolidation to see if regionalization would provide better service and lower costs.

Coos County Mental Health Director Ginger Swan said the two departments are in the very beginning stage of researching the idea.

"We are taking a look to see if it would be feasible and would be a benefit for both counties," she said.

Coos and Curry representatives will meet next week to analyze how Curry services are managed. Swan said the agencies won't know what a collaboration would look like - or if it is possible - until both counties have done more exploration.

Coos County Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean said Curry officials approached him with the idea. Their department director is retiring at the end of this month and they are concerned about unstable state funding.

Curry County Mental Health Director Joe Adair said Oregon Health Plan mental health funding is based on the number of clients and the type of conditions they have. The Curry department has only about 2,000 clients and struggles to provide services.

The department gets into trouble financially because the state requires local agencies to pay if mental health clients are hospitalized. That stipulation usually leads to better care, because the staff works harder to prevent such expensive situations. But it also adds to the pressure for small agencies.

"All it takes is a bad run of people in the hospital to put a run on the bank," Adair said.

He said regionalization could be as simple as writing a service contract where the counties share a director and administrative personnel. That could free up time for staff to see clients. Adair said his department only has five employees and they split time between serving clients and what he calls indirect service, or duties that would normally be done by administrative staff in bigger agencies.

"It gets done - barely," Adair said.

To make sure all options still are on the table, Curry County Commissioner Georgia Nowlin said her county is advertising for a new director while departments consider collaboration. Any kind of merger is likely to cut costs, but officials in both counties say they are less concerned with saving money than they are with how the arrangement would affect clients.

"I don't want to take away from our services," Coos County Commissioner Nikki Whitty said.

"Ultimately, I'm hoping that we can provide equal or better service," Nowlin said.