County leaders pen letter criticizing handling of crisis service provider’s departure

DAYTON — Montgomery County leaders are critical of the Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) board’s handling of its mental health services plan.

>> RELATED: Crisis service provider ends services; Vote to approve new services in Montgomery County fails

It hired the company RI International to run the program, but then it announced it was leaving, as News Center 7 previously reported.

>> RELATED: Crisis service provider leaves Montgomery County tonight, ADAMHS trustees voting on provider tonight

News Center 7 obtained a letter nearly a dozen county leaders signed that questioned and criticized ADAMHS.

The letter was sent on May 15th, right in the middle of the two-week notice RI gave everyone that they would halt operations.

The letter makes it clear many people weren’t happy about the services ADAMHS hired or the way they went about it.

>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: New Montgomery County crisis service providers still undecided, ADAMHS trustees to vote tomorrow

Montgomery County Probate Judge David Brannon signed the letter, along with three county commissioners, the sheriff, the county administrator and a few others. They accuse ADAMHS of failing to use a team approach in hiring RI and failing to respond openly to their concerns, like the lack of a lockdown facility for treating mental health patients.

They also pointed out that county commissioners provide more than 20 million dollars a year in human services levy money to ADAMHS and that might need to be reviewed.

ADAMHS leaders are focused on trying to bring solutions to the current huge gap in mental health services. but they want to defend themselves as well.

They claim they held 75 different public meetings since 2020 about RI coming to town and they said everyone should have known why the lockdown facility fell through.

“That development was in the news nightly for many weeks,” said Tina Rezash Rogal, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Communication for ADAMHS.

Rogal says now the ADAMHS board of trustees will hold another series of community meetings.

Judge Brannon believes this is the right step, but it almost didn’t happen after RI pulled up stakes.

“It was less than a week, key stakeholders come give us your input, then they voted on the contract, thankfully the board said slowdown,” Brannon said.

The new series of meetings are scheduled for the end of June.

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