Chippewa County Wants To Take Over HBH
Seeks 8 Seats To Control Board; Mackinac Objects
By Karen Gould

Chippewa County is mounting a campaign to get eight seats on the Hiawatha Behavioral Health board, taking two each from Mackinac and Schoolcraft counties so it can better control the agency. One change the county would like to see is to move the headquarters from Manistique to Sault Ste. Marie.

The agency, which helps people with mental, emotional, or developmental disabilities, serves all three counties and each county now has four representatives on the board. The move by Chippewa County will reduce the representation in Mackinac and Schoolcraft counties from four board members to two and increase its representation from four seats to eight.

Mackinac County says it will fight the plan, and commissioners plan to adopt a resolution of protest when they meet February 14.

News of the plan came at the Mackinac County Board of Commissioner meeting Thursday, January 24, when Hiawatha Behavioral Health (HBH) CEO Sam Harma, who opposes the change, asked commissioners to protest it to state organizations and the legislature.

Chippewa County, he said, at a meeting January 2, asked State Senator Jason Allen and Representative Gary McDowell to introduce legislation to change the Mental Health Code, allowing them to modify the board's representation without the approval of Mackinac or Schoolcraft counties. They seek representation on the board based on population, not split equally among the sponsoring counties.

Mr. McDowell is from Rudyard, in Chippewa County, and is chairman of the Appropriations Committee on Community Health. He attended a Chippewa County Commission work session December 14 to draft the legislation, Mr. Harma said.

"They want the votes, they want control," he said of Chippewa County. "I think our board has run well with equal representation."

The reason for the proposed change, Chippewa County Chairman Earl Kay told The St. Ignace News Monday, January 28, is to provide his board with more control over the services provided to Chippewa County residents, since the majority of HBH clients are from Chippewa. About 67% of all the agency's clients are in Chippewa County, he said, with approximately 20% coming from Mackinac County and 13% coming from Schoolcraft County.

"It just seems to make a lot of sense to us," he said. "We have more clients in Chippewa than in Schoolcraft and Mackinac put together. We feel we should have more representation."

The Chippewa County board, he added, also would like to see the HBH administrative offices moved to Chippewa County, where the majority of employees work. The office now is in Manistique, in Schoolcraft County. The relocation, he said, would bring HBH administration closer to most of the agency's employees. He noted that the move also would put the administrative offices closer to Mackinac County.

The agency also maintains satellite offices in St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie.

HBH has a staff of approximately 150 people and, of those, he said, 100 employees work in Chippewa County.

"We feel we would be better served to have more people on the board," said Mr. Kay, "and to have administrative offices here."

Moving the administration to the Soo, Mr. Harma told The St. Ignace News Tuesday, January 29, would affect about eight full time and one part time employee.

Before 2000, the mental health board was based on population, said Mr. Harma. At that time, Chippewa County asked him to work with legislators to change the state law to allow equal representation from each county, which he did.

"They want now to change the law back," he told Mackinac County commissioners January 24.

When asked by Commissioner Calvin "Bucky" McPhee why Chippewa leaders had changed their minds, Mr. Harma said he was never given a direct answer.

"I can guess and speculate all night long," he said. "There are people in Chippewa County, a small group of people, who do not like the way the status quo is and they are very, very critical of our agency."

When HBH was formed in the fall of 1997, said Mr. Harma, all three counties agreed to have the administration offices in Manistique.

"Otherwise, I don't know that Schoolcraft County would have merged," he said. Schoolcraft already was in merger discussions with Delta County because state funding practices were changing and small mental health boards were expecting to lose state financial support.

"We knew we had to merge with someone," he said.

At that time, Mackinac and Chippewa counties were operating Eastern Upper Peninsula Community Mental Health. The agency was having financial problems and asked Mr. Harma to serve as an interim director, which eventually led Mackinac and Chippewa counties to seek a merger with Schoolcraft.

"They were an agency in crises," he said. "They had tremendous financial problems."

Chippewa County is proposing language be added to the legislation that would allow the switch in representation on the HBH board after a 90-day notification period, whether the other two counties agree with the change.

According to the Chippewa County Commission meeting minutes from December 14, board member Scott Shackleton, a former state representative, proposed the following language be added to the health code:

"In the event that counties agree to board membership other than in proportion to population, any county represented on the board may notify the state and the other member counties that it desires the board membership to be in proportion to the county's population. After 90 days of notification, the membership of the board will be re-established to reflect a proportional membership."

"The committee asked that Representative McDowell sponsor legislation to change HB5067," states the minutes. "Rep. McDowell agreed to talk with bill writers and to check the legalities of this prospective change."

Mr. McDowell said is looking at legislation that will give the three counties more options.

"I don't think the Chippewa County language will ever become law," he told The St. Ignace News January 29. "There will be a lot of opposition.

Representatives Steven Lindberg of Marquette and Michael Prusi of Ishpeming already have said they will oppose it, he noted.

"The problem with the language," he said, "is it dictates the terms of the other two counties without them having a say in it. I'd like to look at other options to see if something is acceptable to all three counties."

At any rate, he noted, "The number one issue is to make sure clients receive the best possible care."

At the Mackinac County commission meeting last Thursday, Commissioner Mike Patrick, who sits on the HBH board, said the initiative by Chippewa County was news to him and that the plans had never been discussed at a a full HBH board meeting. Also representing Mackinac County on the HBH board are Prosecutor Fred Feleppa, Mary Balfour, and Dan Yake.

In approaching Mackinac County about the plan, Mr. Harma said he has the authorization of the HBH board's executive committee, which includes Mr. Kay.

"I'm not doing this on my own," he told Mackinac County Commissioners, although he said not all HBH board members had been made aware of Chippewa Counties plans.

He said he also plans to attend a Schoolcraft County commission meeting to solicit support in stopping the Chippewa County move.

Commissioner Carl Frazier remembered that Chippewa County had tried a similar move a few years earlier. At that time, Chippewa County approached both Schoolcraft and Mackinac leaders, asking them to change the board's make-up to a population-based representation. Both counties rejected the request then, said Mr. Frazier.

Mr. Harma asked commissioners to let their opposition to the plan be known to the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC), the Department of Community Health, Representative McDowell, and Senator Allen. Chippewa County, he said, may seek support of MAC at its Lansing conference in February.

Mackinac County Commission Chair Dawn Nelson said that without Mackinac County's support of Chippewa County's plan, she does not believe MAC would support the legislation change.

Mackinac County commissioners are expected to adopt the resolution at their Thursday, February 14 meeting. They will meet at 6 p.m. in the annex building at the County Courthouse.