photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Treatment and Recovery Center of Douglas County is pictured on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022.

The top executive at LMH Health is stepping back from involvement with the board of the local nonprofit in charge of the Treatment and Recovery Center of Douglas County.

LMH Health President and CEO Russ Johnson told LMH Health board members as much during their monthly meeting Wednesday morning. Johnson had been acting as a proxy member of the Behavioral Health Partners board in place of Janette Kirkpatrick, who apparently had stepped away from that role earlier this year. LMH Health and Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center formed the nonprofit in 2020 specifically to help develop and manage the new center.

“My communication to the BHP board at the meeting on Monday was that I was stepping off of that board immediately, essentially, and looking to them to help guide our nomination as a replacement to that board,” Johnson said. “I really consider myself off of that board now, and ready for their guidance in who that next trustee, what kind of characteristics, what kind of expertise do they need and want.”

Johnson told board members he felt that the Treatment and Recovery Center project has been a challenging one overall, given that it has involved forming a new organization and working with the state of Kansas to develop a new licensed entity.

Some of those challenges have been brought to light recently, initially through documents obtained by the Journal-World from LMH Health that showed that the county has had some discussions with out-of-state for-profit company Connections Health Solutions to oversee the Treatment and Recovery Center instead of the local nonprofit BHP. Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky recently revealed that BHP hadn’t produced a budget and had failed to meet deadlines, claims that leaders like Johnson didn’t dispute.

But Johnson also restated that a community clinical collaboration like BHP working with the county is what will ultimately make the center successful. He said a Douglas County commissioner — whom he didn’t identify by name — was a part of “constructive dialogue” at a BHP board meeting earlier this week.

“At this juncture, I’m feeling really confident in BHP’s ability to move forward with this, and even feeling maybe just a little bit optimistic about the two parties, BHP and the county, finding their way forward in an amiable and effective solution,” Johnson said.