As county officials question the spending habits of the Winnebago County Mental Health Board, the board could add two seats and the power to make the appointments would go to Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara.
A measure approved easily last week by the General Assembly and headed to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk would change the board from nine members to 11. The nine current board members are appointed by the Winnebago County Board chairman with the consent of the Winnebago County Board.
It’s a measure that is long overdue, McNamara said.
“Since we represent more than 50% of the revenue that’s collected and have some of the greatest need for the services, Rockford should be able to appoint members to that board,” he said.
The move to change the board’s makeup comes on the heels of a decision by the Winnebago County Board to freeze the Mental Health Board’s budget — an action that prevents any new proceeds from the county’s half-cent mental health sales tax from being spent and prevents the board from allocating new funds until 2024 when a new state law will give the Mental Health Board control over its own appropriations.
Winnebago County Board Member Paul Arena has pointed to a more than $28 million fund balance as evidence that the board appears incapable of getting money to the programs that benefit Winnebago County residents.
And he says the Mental Health Board is brushing off his concerns about how much the board pays the Region 1 Planning Council for administration.
Arena views an expansion of the board as unnecessary, adding that McNamara never asked county officials for more say over who is appointed.
“This board is not acting in a way that we’re satisfied with,” Arena said. “The money’s not going out the door. And there’s this trend now for what we feel are excessive costs associated with the administration of the fund.”
Arena was critical of the mental health board’s decision-making, too, questioning the effectiveness of a co-responder program that sends counselors with police to assist people with mental health or substance abuse issues but, according to Arena, only operates during business hours Monday through Friday.
Mental Health Board President Mary Ann Abate said the current board is stacked with experts in the field of mental health who have set up a clinical model for the allocation of funding. Abate worked in the field for 41 years until she retired.
“We try not to to get into battles, and we’ve been very transparent,” Abate said. “Anybody can come in and look at our books. … There’s nothing done but with the highest integrity, and I can vouch for that. We don’t have side conversations and work out deals and big promises. Everyone is treated equally, and we have funded some phenomenal programs.”
Although the Mental Health Board remains a fledgling organization that was formed three years ago during a pandemic, McNamara rattled off the names of four or five of its programs that he said are helping people with mental illness and substance abuse cope and live productive lives.
“We are so fortunate in our community to have a citizenry who stepped up and saw this need and was willing to fund it,” McNamara said. “And it’s so early on in the birth of having this body. It’s hard to really see all the incredible work that they’ve been doing.”
Illinois Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, said he has been disappointed to see the Winnebago County Board interfering with the work of the Mental Health Board. West worked to win approval for the measure that would give McNamara the power to appoint two board members.
“For me, it is about representation,” West said. “Taxation without representation is what we always stand against, right? You and I both know Rockford has the most population in our county and that tax referendum in March 2020 going 60-40, the majority of those voters came from Rockford. It is only fitting that we ensure that some of those board members come from Rockford.”
Jeff Kolkey can be reached at (815) 987-1374, via email at [email protected] and on Twitter @jeffkolkey.