Sangamon County’s recently convened Mental Health Board agreed on a job listing for an executive director position and started discussions about how to organize the Board’s grant structure during its June 24 meeting.
Former Massey Commission staff and members also implored the board to avoid filling governmental budget gaps with the nearly $15 million it’s expected to disburse for community mental health support. Instead, multiple speakers told the board to consider finding ways to bolster methods of intervention so fewer people require state services in the first place.
The Rev. Susan Phillips, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Springfield and a former Massey Commission member, asked the board to consider what events might have influenced the voters who authorized its formation in the first place.
“You are here and I am here because in the last few years, three people of color who were having mental health crises were murdered or significantly harmed: Gregory Small Jr, Earl Moore Jr. and Sonya Massey,” Phillips said in her public comments.
Chair Steve Nardulli, a former judge, said he anticipates county departments will apply for grants from the board. Because of that, the board is planning to put out a request for proposals to hire a lawyer not affiliated with the county.
“We really can’t use the State’s Attorney to provide us with legal counsel when they are, in all likelihood going to – I can almost guarantee – that they will be participating in some grant proposals,” Nardulli said.
Ken Pacha, a community activist with The Purple Coalition and a regular speaker at both the County Board and Springfield City Council, said the board should not be sending tax dollars back to nonprofits with large coffers or government agencies that are already funded by taxes.
“The reality is that this (Board) needs to be community focused, not institutional and systemic. You’re not here to fix the Sangamon County Jail or the mental health system out there, or Memorial, or other large multimillion dollar organizations with budgets that go far beyond what you have,” Pacha said. “That’s not why you guys were created; it’s not to fill their budget gaps.”
Jennifer Douglas, a re-entry coordinator and the board’s secretary, said the board should evaluate if established entities should even be applying for supplemental funding.
“It’s important for us to look at the community and population we’re serving. You could have some of these new corporations or big agencies that have all these millions of dollars and they’re implementing programming, but it’s not working for the populations they’re serving,” Douglas said. “If we have this pot of money, we don’t want to continue to give it to the same agencies who serve the same people… anybody can just say, ‘Here’s a checkbook.’ What are you doing with that? What has worked in the past? What successes do you have?”
Leigh Steiner, former CEO of then-Andrew McFarland Mental Health Center, said the newly formed government body can be a partner to organizations attempting to help people struggling with mental health.
“We have the opportunity to not just be a funder, but to be a partner with the county, with the city, with our faith community, with service providers in helping to identify what gaps we have in our system,” she said. “That’s a unique responsibility, or opportunity, that we have and no other entity does.”
David Racine, former executive director of the Center for State Policy and Leadership at University of Illinois Springfield, gave an overview of the various considerations, options and timelines the board will have to weigh when it comes to establishing how it administers and disburses funds.
Sheriff Paula Crouch, who won her March primary race against a former employee, addressed the board during public comment and said she had concerns about the idea of how the board would evaluate outcomes.
“Some of the stuff that I might want to ask for – I can’t promise you that if you give me money for those things that in a year, I’m going to be able to give you outcomes that you can weigh. I’m sure there are a lot of agencies that you’ll encounter that can maybe tell you, ‘This is what’s happened in other communities, this is what has happened with other agencies,’ but that guarantee won’t be there,” she said.
The board is scheduled to meet monthly and the next meeting is planned for 3 p.m. on Wednesday, July 22. Former Massey Commission public engagement coordinator Adam White pleaded for the board to change its regular meeting time, saying it doesn’t invite community input.
“Please don’t operate from comfort, don’t operate from convenience…” White said. “Please change this three o’clock on Wednesday (meeting time); it’s not going to work for 90% of the community.”
The county’s inaugural Mental Health Board also includes: Michael Gaines, corrections coordinator for the Illinois Department of Public Health; Janice Gambach, former CEO of Memorial Behavioral Health; William Moredock, president of Sacred Heart-Griffin High School; Margaret Seymour, a psychiatric clinician; and Brian Wojcicki, a lobbyist and lawyer.
Please don’t operate from comfort or convenience.
Will this board help make Springfield not have sketchy weirdos asking me for money as I wait at a stoplight at Laurel and 11th?