Area Mental Health Agencies See Shortfall
in State Opioid and Stimulant Response Grant Funds
Geauga County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board (GC-MHRS) - Regular Meeting - January 15, 2025
Meeting Details: GC-MHRS Board held a Regular Meeting on Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 6 pm at the Board offices located at 13244 Ravenna Rd., Chardon, OH 44024. This meeting was in person only with no recording available. The agenda was available through a request to Office/Administrative Manager Teresa Slater by email at tslater@geauga.org.
Public Comment Policy: No formal policy but in practice, public comment is permitted at the end of the meeting.
Board Members Attending: Chair Steven Oluic, Secretary Jimmy Lee Holden, Treasurer Michael Petruziello and Board Members Reba Dykes, Kathy Johnson, Carolee Lesyk, Douglas Lundblad, Mary Ruth Shumway, and Patricia Varanese
Board Members Absent: Vice Chair Alberta Chokshi
Staff Members Attending: Executive Director Christine Lakomiak, Clinical/Compliance Manager Michelle Maneage, Finance Director Jim Mausser and Office/Administrative Manager Teresa Slater. In addition, a new staff member was introduced, Danette Richards. This was her second day on the job. She has a Masters in Public Administration and many years of experience. She will be reporting to Finance Director Jim Mausser and will work on client enrollment, claims and reports.
Others Attending: Agency representatives Tia Lawrence (Torchlight), Mary Wynne-Peaspanen (Signature Health), Melanie Blasko (Lake Geauga Recovery Center - LGRC), Angi Dougherty (Family Pride), Kristine Frankenberry (NAMI Geauga), Scott Smith (NAMI Geauga), Andrea Gutka (WomenSafe), and Vicki Clark (Ravenwood). A reporter from the Geauga Maple Leaf, several members of the public and this LWVG Observer also attended.
Call to Order, Roll Call, and Pledge of Allegiance occurred as listed on the agenda. The meeting was called to order at 6:13 pm. There was a brief delay while waiting for a quorum.
Minutes: Minutes for the November 13, 2024 meeting were approved. Minutes are posted on the Board’s webpage here.
Chairman’s Report: This was delayed in the Agenda as Dr. Oluic was delayed in attending.
Executive Director’s Report: Ms. Lakomiak discussed the following:
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HB 257 would permit the GC-MHRS to hold virtual meetings. This bill has been signed by the Governor and will take effect in 90 days. Ms. Lakomiak said that the Board would need to vote as to whether to permit virtual meetings. There will also be various questions to be decided, such as when or how voting could be done virtually.
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Legislative Day - This will be held on January 28 from 10:30-6:30 pm. Ms. Lakomiak will be traveling to Columbus for this and hopes to meet with Representative Sarah Fowler, State Senator Sandra O’Brien and Representative Steve Demetriou. Her goal is to advocate for help with the crisis in hospital inpatient care. GC-MHRS has spent all of their inpatient care allocation this fiscal year ($66,000) due to the large increase in need for this service, whereas a total of $56,000 was spent on inpatient care all of the previous year.
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Suicide Prevention - GC-MHRS will hold a resource presentation at Claridon Woodlands on June 4, 2025 from 11am-3pm. There will be a barbecue, music, raffles and guest speakers. Scouts will volunteer to help. She said there are a lot of community partners.
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Non-Medicaid Medical Necessity audits are almost done. They have Family Pride tomorrow. Once the last ones are done, she will do a more indepth review of these.
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Updating Procedures and Policies - They have been working on this.
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Youth Assessments at Lake County Detention Center - Ms. Lakomiak said that Geauga County has switched from Portage County to Lake County for their Youth Detention. She said that the youth need to have an assessment before they leave detention so that, upon release, they will have information about resources available to them and they can be linked with providers. Ms. Lakomiak said that this sometimes happens quickly. All the agencies have collaborated to put together a policy to get this done.
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Board Benefit Handbook - This is being updated and has to go to all partner agencies to give to all their clients. It was very outdated. It lists on a single sheet services that are available. It includes eligibility, services available, client rights, confidentiality and other information about agencies.
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Annual reports - Ms. Lakomiak is working on these, especially the Community Action Plan, Crisis Services Plan and Progress Report Scorecard. They are collecting data and more information will be available on these.
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Progress at TLC (Transitional Living Center) - Ms. Lakomiak said that after the ribbon cutting ceremony in November, Board members have continued to give enormous amounts of time toward getting things ready. The completion might be pushed from November to December 2025 as some work had to be postponed due to the winter weather.
Chairman’s Report - Dr. Oluic said Happy New Year and expressed his belief that 2025 would be a great year. He mentioned the TLC, which he said was “so exciting.” He also said that they are “at full staff” now.
Committee Reports
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Programs and Policies - Chair Kathy Johnson said that they met on December 16, 2024. There are two grants in process: one for a certified Recovery House (through HUD) and the other with BSPA (Bi-Partisan Safer Community Act) through Ohio MHAS (Mental Health and Addiction Services), which would include disaster plans and community action.
They also looked at the revised benefit handbook (referred to by Ms. Lakomiak in her report) and made some changes in the sliding fee schedule. They changed their January meeting to a full board special meeting (see LWVG Observer Report on this meeting here) so that the new policies could be approved. There was a program in Munson for first responders which seemed to be a great program.
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Fiscal and Capital - Chair Reba Dykes said they met on January 6, 2025. They approved their new charge for the committee, and they reviewed some of the action items coming up on the Agenda (see below).
Board Review and Action Items - All Approved Unanimously
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Resolution 25-01-1 Acknowledgement of County Budget for Calendar Year 2025 - Ms. Lakomiak said that all these motions came out of the Fiscal and Capital Committee. She said that this resolution is an acknowledgment of the County budget. She said, as a reminder, that the county budget is on a calendar year basis, but that the State budget ends in June.
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Resolution 25-01-2- Board Office Generator Installation - Ms. Lakomiak said that after the initial Board discussion in November, they obtained five more quotes and two of them were cheaper than the prior two. The Fiscal and Capital Committee recommended they go with Shepp Electric, which had the lowest bid of $27,890. The Resolution allocates an amount not to exceed $30,000 for the purchase, installation and incidentals for the 48 KW generator.
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Resolution 25-01-3 Ravenwood Health SOS 4.0 Budget Allocation - This is in regards to the SOS Grant (State Opioid and Stimulant Response Grant.) As had been discussed at a prior meeting, this year the State asked Agencies to apply directly for funds rather than go through the Board. Ms. Lakomiak stated that none of the agencies received the full funding amounts requested. Ravenwood received $482,000 less than what they requested, so they asked the GC-MHRS to help with $122,500 towards costs of medication and peer support. Ms. Lakomiak said that Ravenwood was asking other entities for funding and also looking at ways to do things differently. Mr. Petruziello said that he had mentioned before that grant dollars would be diminishing and that agencies would have to look at their budgets.
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Resolution 25-01-4 Board Crisis Stabilization and Hospital Inpatient - As noted above by Director Lakomiak, there has been a large increase in hospital inpatient admissions for mental health, so this resolution allocates an additional $60,000 for Crisis Stabilization and Hospital Inpatient costs. Ms. Lakomiak said that this is a requirement for the Board. There was some discussion among Board members and Ms. Lakomiak as to the cause of this increase. Ms. Lakomiak said that this is happening across the State and that residential for young people had gone down while hospitalizations went up for adults. Ms. Lakomiak said that she is not sure of the reason. Ms. Lakomiak said they have communicated with the state and there could be more coming, but for now they wanted to allocate the money in case they need it. Ms. Lakomiak also said that Family First would not be collecting all of their allocation because of the decreasing need for youth residential treatment.
Insurance Overview for 2025 - Ms. Lakomiak said that Office Manager Teresa Slater is working on this and more will be known in February. Observer Note: The Board changed the policy in terms of when a new employee would be eligible for medical coverage to align with the County policy. See LWVGeauga Observer Report for January 13, 2025 here for details.
120 Day Notice - As explained by Ms. Lakomiak, the 120 day notice is required by Ohio Revised Code. It requires Mental Health Boards to notify all agencies that there could be a change in their allocation in the coming year. She said that these go out every year but she just wanted the Board to know that these notices are required to be sent out to agencies in May.
Financial Reports - Mr. Mausser reported the November and December 2024 totals as follows:
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The Board SFY2025 (7/1/23-6/30/24) office budget is through December and they have expended 43.4% of the budget.
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The County calendar year (1/1/24-12/31/24) expenses were just over $7.38 million through December.
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The Auditor Fund Balance (December unencumbered balance) was over $2.8 million.
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Voucher recap for November was $411,518.91 and for December it was $500,509.55.
Old Business - None
New Business - None
Public Comments:
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This Observer asked one clarifying question which is reflected in the report.
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Kristine Frankenberry (NAMI Geauga) introduced Scott Smith who is a new Program Manager at NAMI Geauga. He worked at Crossroads in Lake County for six years. Ms. Frankenberry said that they are now up to full staff.
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Board Member Mary Ruth Shumway said that there is a need for a peer support group in the Chagrin area for trauma and asked if anyone knew of one that was functioning now. Dr. Oluic said maybe this is a need that needs to be addressed.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:52 pm.
Board Minutes: Available at https://www.geauga.org/board-minutes/
Next meeting: The next meeting will be the regular meeting on February 19, 2025 at 6 pm. Meetings are held at the Board offices located at 13244 Ravenna Rd., Chardon, OH 44024.
More Information: https://www.geauga.org/
Observer: Gail Roussey
Editor: Carol Benton
Reviewer: Sarah McGlone
Date Submitted: 1/24/2025
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