The Four County Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services voted to start the process of putting a seven-tenths mill property tax renewal on the November ballot at its Thursday (May 12) meeting.
The resolution approved by the board asks the Defiance County auditor to certify the four county taxing district’s current valuation and the amount of money that the renewal of the seven-tenths mill levy would generate.
The Four County ADAMhs Board is supported by two, seven-tenths mill property taxes that are collected for a period of five years before voters have to approve them again. Together, the two taxes generated $4,182,203 last year for the board, or approximately 60 percent of its total revenue.
The property tax that would be up for renewal in November was first approved by voters in 1982 and has been extended every five years by the voters of Defiance, Fulton, Henry and Williams counties. Although the voted millage rate is seven-tenths of one mill, the current effective millage rate of the property tax is .57 of one mill.
The actual vote to place the issue on the ballot will be made once the Defiance County auditor certifies the amount that a renewal will generate.
In other action, the board approved a $27,000 allocation to support the Defiance County Drug Free Coalition, Inc. The coalition, which is a collaborative effort of the Defiance County Health Department, the Defiance County Family and Children First Council and the ADAMhs Board, has provided awareness activities for Defiance county schools.
The board also approved transferring $20,000 to Citizens for Mental Health to explain the mental health renewal.
ADAMhs Board CEO Les McCaslin provided a number of updates to the board.
Construction started about two weeks ago on a 10-bed addition to the Comprehensive Crisis Care facility in Napoleon that is operated by Family Service of Northwest Ohio. The additional 10 beds when completed later this year will be used to provide mental health crisis stabilization services for adults.
Two years ago, Comprehensive Crisis Care converted the 10 beds that had been used for adult crisis stabilization to youth and adolescent beds. Late last year, state and local funding became available to expand the facility and restore the adult beds.
The CEO noted that two successful trainings, sponsored in part by the ADAMhs Board, were recently completed. More than 110 persons attended a day-long training that taught clergy and behavioral health professionals how to help families of suicide victims. The presenter, Dr. Frank Campbell, last spring trained 28 persons to be part of LOSS (Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide) teams. The teams respond immediately when law enforcement suspects a suicide death. The teams offer support and hope for the family members.
In April, a crisis intervention team (CIT) training for 17 area law enforcement officers was held. The training is designed to help police better understand mental illness and how to respond to mental health crisis situations in ways that will safely de-escalate and resolve the crisis. An additional CIT training is being planned for the fall.
McCaslin also reported that the presentation that Williams County commissioner Brian Davis, Dr. Warren Morris, chief clinical director for Community Health Partners of Western Ohio; and he made at the recent state opiate conference went well.
Davis talked about the positive economic impact that the Bryan Community Health Center has had on Bryan while Dr. Morris talked about medication assisted treatment for opiod addiction and McCaslin explained how the partnership with Health Partners of Western Ohio has saved the ADAMhs Board system money.
The board met in executive session to consider the purchase of property.
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