Next Steps for Opioid/Marijuana Funds, Mental Health Center

Grand Traverse County commissioners agreed this week to have a committee create a process for distributing the county’s opioid settlement and marijuana revenue funds. That process, which will come back to the board for approval, could allow the county to start getting money to more local organizations in need in 2025. Commissioners also heard an update on the region’s newly opened mental health center.

Opioid/Marijuana Funds
County commissioners Darryl Nelson, Lauren Flynn, and Ashlea Walter will serve on an ad hoc committee that will help create a process for distributing county opioid settlement and marijuana revenue funds. The working group will also include County Administrator Nate Alger, Deputy Administrator Chris Forsyth, Finance Director Dean Bott, and Civil Counsel Matt Nordfjord.

Walter, who proposed the committee, emphasized that its job wouldn’t be to recommend specifically where to allocate dollars – just to establish the framework by which commissioners will make those decisions. A community opioid taskforce previously met for months to create specific recommendations on how to locally spend opioid funds, which total approximately $1.65 million currently and are expected to reach $5.8 million over several years. The taskforce has not yet had the opportunity to present its recommendations to county commissioners, a delay some taskforce members have publicly questioned.

Nelson said the county commission may have “unintentionally...disrespected the work” of the taskforce, adding the county “owes the community and that committee to be very deliberate” in its next steps with distributing funds. Commissioners agreed to hold a study session by mid-March to hear a presentation on the taskforce’s recommendations. Commissioners previously approved using approximately $72,000 in opioids funds to pay for a consulting firm to work with the taskforce and voted last summer to allocate another $39,500 to 86th District Court for enhanced drug treatment services. But the board rejected other immediate spending suggestions from the taskforce, such as dedicating $300,000 to the Sheriff’s Office to expand the local Quick Response Team. Commissioners have since continued to hold off spending more opioid dollars, saying they want a process in place and to hear the taskforce’s full plan first. That means only $111,500 of the county's $1.65 million in opioid funding has been spent to date.

Commissioners also want a process in place for the county’s marijuana tax revenues, though most of the $886,000 in revenues from 2024 have already been committed. Chief among those allocations was $500,000 to Camp Greilick – $250,000 to the Forever Greilick endowment fund and $250,000 as a matching challenge for public donations. Commissioners last August also agreed to give $150,000 to Pine Rest to support community child psychiatry services. The board additionally committed $125,000 in both 2024 and 2025 to Northern Michigan Supportive Housing (an optional third year is also on the table). In total, the county has committed $775,000 of its $886,000 in 2024 marijuana revenues.

Multiple commissioners worried that community funding requests like Pine Rest’s will continue rolling in and didn’t want to keep haphazardly awarding funds. Commissioner TJ Andrews said that without a public process that’s “fair, transparent, and open to anybody” to request funding, the county will be “picking who we like and who we don’t like and giving them money...that’s just not a sustainable approach to distributing funds.”

The county’s new ad hoc committee is charged with creating a consistent process by which all future opioid and marijuana revenue spending decisions can be fairly evaluated.

Mental Health Center
With the region’s long-awaited new Grand Traverse Mental Health Crisis and Access Center opening its doors this month, Munson Healthcare COO Laura Glenn appeared before commissioners this week to give an update on the project. Grand Traverse County gave a $5 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant to the center, making the county one of its primary initial funders.

Munson Healthcare and the Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority (NLCMHA) have operating/staffing and lease agreements in place to co-run the center, which is planned to provide outpatient and residential mental health crisis services to patients of any age regardless of their ability to pay. Located at 410 Brook Street on Munson Medical Center’s campus, the center is gradually opening in phases this year, starting with initial hours of Sunday-Thursday 8am-8pm. Services and staffing will be scaled up throughout 2025 to eventually offer 24/7 behavioral health services, a psychiatric urgent care, and adult and pediatric crisis residential units.

Glenn said that in its first full week, the center served 11 patients ranging in age from 20 to 73. Seven of those patients came from Grand Traverse County, with Benzie County the next largest area represented at two patients. Half of the patients were commercially insured, while the other half had Medicaid. That points to a key component of the center’s long-term sustainability, Glenn said, which will include a mix of funding sources including different insurance reimbursements, grants, and philanthropy.

Commissioners discussed their desire to continue seeing metrics from the center and to keep a public spotlight on its work and progress. Glenn agreed, noting that a community advisory group is in place for the facility and that Munson and NLCMHA are “very open to being transparent with those metrics.” She agreed with steering committee member Carlton Ketchum from Traverse Indivisible, who said in public comment that “failure is not an option” for the mental health center given its importance to the community. “This is something that can really make our county – our region – excellent,” Ketchum said.

Pictured: Grand Traverse Mental Health Crisis and Access Center. Photo credit: Munson Healthcare.