Leaders with the South Central Montana Regional Mental Health Center, a coalition of Eastern Montana counties providing mental health resources throughout the region, are frustrated.
The Health Center's board chairman and its executive director met on Thursday with the three Yellowstone County commissioners and expressed their concerns about how the Billings-based Substance Abuse Connect has operated over the last six months.
"No one seems to think we do any good," said Carl Seilstad, chairman of the Mental Health Center board. "But we treat a lot of patients and have had some real good outcomes."
The Mental Health Center is a 13-county organization that includes Yellowstone County and provides public mental health and homeless services to the region. It's funding comes from the 13 counties using its services and representatives from each county sit on its board. Seilstad is a Fergus County commissioner.
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Substance Abuse Connect is a partnership of more than a dozen law enforcement, mental health and addiction recovery agencies in Yellowstone County designed to reduce crime and create more efficiency among service providers that assist those in mental health or substance abuse crisis or those at risk of crisis. It was formed in 2018.
Rod Ostermiller, who was the U.S. Marshal for Montana until he retired last year, is now executive director of the MHC. He expressed concern about a perceived lack of transparency and accountability in regards to the tax dollars Substance Abuse Connect was shepherding to organizations and the way it conducts meetings.
Substance Abuse Connect meetings are often called with only a few hours notice, which ends up excluding many of the partners. As a result, over the last 18 months, Ostermiller has attended only two meetings.
"I don't think there was a lot of genuine effort in scheduling their meetings," he said.
But at the center of the debate is funding. Substance Abuse Connect has been acting as the agency earmarking how funds from Yellowstone County's $1.3 million mill levy is used. The levy was passed by county voters in 2010 with language stipulating that the money must be used on mental health services that aid law enforcement.
Substance Abuse has no authority to allocate county tax dollars; rather it makes recommendations to the county commission, which then approves or denies the requests.
For much of the last decade, the county allocated that money to two places: the Community Crisis Center and the MHC, which used its portion to fund the HUB resource center in downtown Billings.
Yellowstone County Commissioners Don Jones and Denis Pitman were unhappy with the setup, arguing there were little oversight or accountability with how the mill levy funds were being spent.
In 2019, Pitman worked to move the HUB from its corner on North 27th Street and Sixth Street North to Minnesota Avenue, with the idea it could rent new space from the Montana Rescue Mission. That idea was shot down by the MHC board, which operated the HUB and owns the building.
In 2020, county commissioners then reallocated a portion of the mill levy funding away from the Mental Health Center to other services in Billings, which forced the MHC to shut down the HUB. The building is currently for sale.
Commissioners also reallocated away from the MHC a portion of the alcohol money it receives from the state for local treatment programs. In all, the MHC has lost over $250,000 in funding from Yellowstone County.
Kristen Lundgren, director of Substance Abuse Connect, said the organization has a "net-zero" program with the goal of keeping in place those portions of the mill levy funding to the Crisis Center and MHC that the two organizations need.
The Crisis Center, which traditionally received 85% of the mill levy dollars, requested $700,000. Lundgren said Ostermiller told Substance Abuse Connect that the MHC didn't need any. Ostermiller pushed back on that at Thursday's meeting, denying he ever said that.
He then pointed to a meeting last year when Substance Abuse Connect offered the MHC $25,000.
"It was kind of insulting to me, quite honestly," Ostermiller said. "That's how I've felt about this whole process."
Lundgren apologized for the miscommunication and acknowledged Substance Abuse Connect needs to do better about scheduling its meeting well in advance.
"I understand people can't operate on short notice," she said. "I do think we'll get better."
She then pointed out that the majority of Substance Abuse Connect meetings are scheduled in advance. She then expressed her appreciation for the work done by the MHC.
"We here at Substance Abuse Connect see the Mental Health Center as a tremendously important and valuable partner," she said.
Both Ostermiller and Seilstad expressed appreciation and confidence in the work being done by Substance Abuse Connect and hoped communication would improve.
Much of the frustration came to light last month when Seilstad sent a letter to Yellowstone County commissioners expressing his concerns about a lack of transparency and poor planning on the part of Substance Abuse Connect.
