photo by: Journal-World

The west side of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.

County leaders will decide this week whether to help fund a staffing and service hour expansion for Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center’s mobile crisis response team.

Bert Nash is requesting $70,000 from the county to help support the team, which began operating in September from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. The Douglas County Commission will hear a presentation about the funding request Wednesday at its weekly meeting.

In part, the requested money would add two full-time therapists and two full-time peer specialists so that the team could function until 2 a.m. daily starting in December. Eventually, according to the presentation from Bert Nash, the mobile team will include around 20 full-time employees and provide coverage around the clock. Bert Nash is aiming to achieve that goal by May 2023 at the latest, according to an executive summary about the request.

The executive summary also identifies the gulf in funding to fully implement the mobile response team; the request from the county would be part of the puzzle to cover a more than $500,000 gap. That could be covered through a number of grants and revenue types, including the state Medicaid plan tied to Bert Nash’s new Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic certification. The costs of serving Bert Nash’s Medicaid population are completely covered under that model.

“We recognize that there are likely many iterations of progress between where we stand today and a fully expanded integrated mobile and co-response team,” a summary of the proposal from Bert Nash reads. “We remain open to feedback on how we can best support the community with expansion of this critical service and leverage our CCBHC funding.”

In other business, the commission will:

• Consider a pair of conditional use permits, one establishing an event center or public assembly space at 1558 North 600 Road about 5 miles north of Baldwin City, and the other for heavy equipment storage at 1603 East 779 Road just west of Lawrence off U.S. Highway 40.

For the latter item, the previous conditional use permit for the property expired in 2016, and the existing use of the property has been without an approved permit. According to the agenda item for that permit, Douglas County zoning and codes staff was made aware of property maintenance issues on the property in question and has been working with the property owner to rectify the situation.

Wednesday’s business meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. The meeting will also be available by Zoom. For meeting information, visit the county’s website: dgcoks.org/commissionmeetings.