988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Advocacy Whitepaper

The Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation has released an Ohio-specific 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Whitepaper, reviewing 1) summary of need, 2) progress made with 988 implementation statewide, and 3) Financial information related to the programs State Budget requests.

The FY 26 & FY 27 proposed funding amounts are based on actuarial analysis predicting a 28% increase in contacts, adding approximately 528,000 contacts over two years. The proposed costs of these programs are approximately $33.2M in FY 2025 (this year), $39.5M in FY 2026, and $42.6M in FY 2027.

OhioMHAS likewise released a 988 Funding Overview Memo, to more clearly provide explanation for what is being proposed in the SFY 26-27 budget. The OhioMHAS memo is available here.