photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, is pictured Tuesday, February 25, 2025.

Leaders of Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center are hoping that the Douglas County Commission will provide about $1.7 million in new funding to help cover the nonprofit’s 2025 losses.

But even if that unbudgeted funding materializes — which is far from a certainty — Bert Nash will still have a $900,000 deficit for this year, the organization’s financial committee was told on Wednesday.

“It’s not getting any less expensive to provide the level of care that we provide,” Lexie Fager, finance manager at Bert Nash, said. “We’ve seen a cost savings from what we had originally drafted up in our budget from some of the staff cuts that we’ve made … But overall, there are some areas I will say that I think that we can still shrink back. We have already looked into multiple contracts and expenses. We are trying to do without as much as we possibly can.”

As the Journal-World reported, Bert Nash has been struggling financially for several months now. In May, Bert Nash cut around 30 employees, and other select employees had taken pay cuts. This means the organization stands today around the same size as it was last year.

How further cuts in 2025 might impact the organization and the clients that rely on it for mental health services wasn’t clear at Wednesday’s meeting. But its new leader said all sorts of expense savings are being examined.

“I think this is an opportunity for us to really be open and honest with ourselves about every one of these line items,” interim CEO Kirsten Watkins said. “I was even looking at the postage line and having conversations with people about that.”

According to Bert Nash’s budget for 2025, the organization is currently facing a loss of about $2.6 million without the county’s help. The requests submitted to the county earlier this year asked for $500,000 in gap funding to address the challenges to its behavioral health services, specifically outpatient therapy services, with another request totaling $1.2 million to continue operating the Treatment & Recovery Center at the current level for 2026.

“The county has approved $6.2 million in funding (for 2025),” Fager said. “However, we requested $1.2 million for the TRC and $500,000 for uninsured services, so if we do not get them, we’ll get $6.2 million. And if we were to get them, it would look more about $7.9 million.”

There was also a request for $604,305 sent to county commissioners to address gap funding in services at the Treatment & Recovery Center, but that was not accounted for in Bert Nash’s final 2025 budget scenarios. The Journal-World reached out to Bert Nash staff about why this funding request was not included, but staff was not able to immediately respond.

But even in the best-case scenario, if the county approves additional funding requests in 2026, Bert Nash would still need to identify a way to cover the remaining $982,365 shortfall. Regardless of the outcome, reductions in funding for specific services or other areas of the organization will be necessary.

Matthew Herbert, chair of the Bert Nash governing board, told committee members at the meeting that the organization was still paying 90 days of severance funding to former CEO Patrick Schmitz, who resigned at the end of June.

“He was the highest paid employee at Bert Nash, so that’s going to be a significant severance chunk,” Herbert said. “And in addition to that, his 15% voluntary pay deduction that he took apparently ceased to exist at his point of resignation. So we’re actually paying his severance at his full salary for 90 days.”

While Bert Nash is looking to the county for any additional funding to offset the shortfall for 2025, that funding is far from certain. Douglas County commissioners concluded 2026 budget deliberations last week and did not express an interest in awarding funding for the additional gap funding requests to make up the organization’s loss for this year.

However, commissioners decided to set aside $1 million for mental health crisis care services in 2026. This decision was primarily because of the anticipated increasing costs for the TRC next year. But that funding is not limited to the TRC, and it could be allocated to other organizations needing support for crisis care.

In addition, commissioners have reserved $500,000 in solvency funding for Bert Nash with the goal of making operations more efficient down the road. Before commissioners award any additional funding to Bert Nash, the commission wants to meet with the governing board to get a better understanding of the financial situation, and then provide assistance where it is most needed.

Final decisions on the county’s 2026 budget have not been made, and it is currently scheduled to be approved at the end of August following a public hearing.