Something Democrats and Republicans agree on is that the state of mental health care in Washington is in dire need of improvements.

Both parties have worked on and advanced policy ideas to decentralize mental health care treatment.

“Too many people with mental illnesses are not getting the care and treatment they urgently need,” according to the highlights from the Inslee budget, released in 2016. “Our mental health system has inadequate community options in place, which further burdens already overcrowded state hospitals. We face rising crises of opioid addiction and homelessness. In many instances, these problems are intertwined. Our solutions need to be intertwined too.”

Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed budget included $300 million in mental health services. That money is directed toward expanding available beds in communities rather than further expanding Western State and Eastern State hospitals.

Joseph O’Sullivan explained in this article for the Seattle Times:

“A lack of bed space in the (Western State) — which quietly withdrew from a national accreditation program earlier this year — has put pressure on regional mental-health facilities. Meanwhile, some patients in the hospital can’t be discharged because there’s nowhere in the community for them to go.

Inslee’s budget plan would address those problems by funding about 700 new mental-health workers and 1,000 new beds of different types. Along with that, the plan would shift the majority of civilly committed patients out of the state’s two psychiatric hospitals — Eastern State and Western State.

Such a move would mean that the majority of Western State’s patients — those who are civilly committed — would move to community beds by 2020.”

At their weekly press conference Monday, Republicans echoed that tone, saying the state hasn’t addressed a problem it should have years before.

Rep. Norma Smith, R- Whidbey Island, bemoaned that the legislature hadn’t set enough money aside for mental health treatment in the past.

“We want to do more in that space I think it’s unfortunate that we have not spent what we ought to have spent in capital budget,” she said. “We did a much better job this last budget but the budgets before that – several in a row – I think didn’t do what we needed to do in this space.”

Where Republicans and Democrats disagree is in a predictable place: money. But the disagreement is less stark than in other issues.

Sen. Randi Becker, R-Eatonville, said she saw Inslee’s plan for staffing Western State as possibly too high.

“I think that the staffing level is the Cadillac of staffing levels,” she said, adding that it could be better to budget for less staff, test it, and then reconsider after testing.

Smith also indicated she wanted tighter budgets than Democrats.

“How do we best deploy dollars to meet those needs in our communities?” she said.

Erin Fenner: erin@washingtonstatewire.com, @erinfenner

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