Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33), left, and Chicago Federation of Labor deputy chief of staff Andrea Kluger speak during a City Council committee meeting on Thursday.

Chicago is broadening its funding for mental health services, but the spending boost won’t mean much if it keeps outsourcing services to organizations that underpay their workers, multiple aldermen and labor groups said Thursday.

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) called the chronic underpayment of nonprofit mental health workers contracted by the Chicago Department of Public Health key “context” behind a resolution she sponsored (R2022-144) expressing the City Council’s support for a unionization drive by workers at the Howard Brown Health Center. The City Council Committee on Workforce Development unanimously advanced the resolution, as well as a seven-year extension on a deal with Cook County to fund workforce programming, during its meeting on Thursday.