photo by: Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

The Lawrence-based HeadQuarters Kansas operates the 988 suicide crisis call center for all 105 counties.

A Lawrence-based nonprofit that staffs the state’s suicide prevention crisis line may need financial help from Douglas County after it had to repay nearly $300,000 of misspent grant funds.

A leader with HeadQuarters Kansas told Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday that the organization has made significant changes to its financial practices and operations following a turnover in leadership of the organization.

As the Journal-World reported, approximately 80% of the staff of HeadQuarters last year signed a letter demanding the resignation of the entire board and interim executive director, citing concerns over potential misuse of grant funds. Shortly thereafter, the entire board and interim executive director resigned in July 2024. Lawrence attorney Dan Watkins was appointed by the Douglas County District Court to become the interim director of the nonprofit.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Watkins told the Journal-World that the organization had received state funding from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services to operate the state’s crisis support line in the coming fiscal year. HeadQuarters answers calls that come from Kansas counties on the 988 suicide crisis and lifeline. But the state funding won’t be enough to fully cover the estimated $4 million cost to fund HeadQuarters’ operations for the year.

“Our grant from KDADS is $3.25 million, so we’ve got another $750,000 that will need to come from maybe Douglas County (and) hopefully some in private sources and grants,” Watkins told the Journal-World.

A commitment of new state funding, however, is a big step for HeadQuarters, given its financial issues of the past year. Commissioners in a written report were told KDADS completed an audit of grant funds HeadQuarters received for state fiscal years 2021 through 2023 and found $275,716 in non-reimbursable expenditures, which included bonuses that had not received board or KDADS approval. Watkins told the Journal-World those funds have since been paid back to KDADS.

In addition, the report found financial audits for HeadQuarters in 2021, 2022 and 2023 were substantially delayed. Additionally, it was determined the organization’s financial management had “serious weaknesses,” including “problematic access to accounting systems and bank accounts.”

Since Watkins took over leadership last summer, he said the organization has improved its financial practices by hiring a professional firm to provide chief financial officer services, created new segregation of duties between financial accounts, hired a dedicated staff accountant, re-engaged outside auditors, hired an human resources manager to oversee employee timekeeping practices and provided staff members training on grant compliance issues.

County commissioners at their meeting on Wednesday were not asked to make any financial commitment to HeadQuarters, but rather received an informational briefing on the status of the organization ahead of the county beginning its 2026 budget discussions this summer.

Karli Williams, director of quality assurance and compliance at HeadQuarters Kansas, said the past year has been a year of growth and change. She said last year the organization did not operate with a model that allowed it to directly hire counseling staff. Instead, new additions first had to become a volunteer with the organization.

“The only training model that we had set up was very long (and) designed for volunteers only,” Williams said. “And in the last year, we made a change to that. We’ve adapted that, and we now have 32 full-time and 32 part-time staff. That’s not all counselors, but a large group that has been able to come in (has been) through our (new) training model to allow us to hire more directly.”

Williams said HeadQuarters is still utilizing volunteers as well as interns. Currently, the organization has three interns from the University of Kansas and five active volunteers.

“We’re slowly rebuilding that capacity,” Williams said. “It does exist already, but being able to figure out how to run that new training program, that’s very much part of where we’re still learning, and adapting, and making changes and just figuring out how to make it work.”

Williams said HeadQuarters is also currently working to bring back its in-person counseling services to Douglas County residents.

“It was a donation-based therapy through the licensed clinicians that work at HeadQuarters, as well as interns,” Williams said. “So, we’re really hoping to get that going again and it’s a unique service that we were able to provide.”

Williams said she previously served as the organization’s call room coordinator, but she left in hopes of pursuing slightly different options and joined Bert Nash’s Mobile Response Team. However, she found herself back at HeadQuarters recently to be more involved in a programming role.

Williams said collectively, HeadQuarters Kansas has 25 years of experience and two people have returned, herself being one of them.

“I’m grateful to come back, and I got to see all the changes that happened over the last year,” Williams said. ” … I think we’re in a massively better place than we were because realistically, part of why I left was because I could feel the instability of how we were running things.”

In other business, county commissioners:

• Initiated a supportive housing pilot to house people in the county’s Behavioral Health Court and other specialty court programs. The project involves leasing eight two-bedroom units to provide supportive housing to people involved in the county’s criminal justice system. Four of the units would be used to house people in the county’s specialty court programs, like the drug court and behavioral health court, and the other four would be used for other people involved in the criminal justice system.

To start the pilot, county commissioners redirected $154,000 of existing funding toward the project on Wednesday. The properties are owned by Sims Properties, a landlord that is new to providing supportive housing in Lawrence, and the pilot would involve Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center entering into a master lease agreement with Sims to manage the units, as the Journal-World reported.

The implementation of the pilot is expected to start as soon as July with two units opening and the rest projected to be ready in September.

• Approved an amendment to the Peaslee Teach board of directors’ bylaws that would change how the board is selected. Specifically, Peaslee Tech no longer wants its board members to be appointed by the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission.

Peaslee Tech previously changed its bylaws in 2022 to make Douglas County and the City of Lawrence responsible for appointments to its board. According to a memo to commissioners, it says that change was made because Peaslee Tech was trying to get permission from the Kansas Legislature to ask voters to approve a new taxing district to fund its operations.

Since then, however, Peaslee has abandoned the idea of a special taxing district and is instead focused on building a $10 million endowment. To do so effectively, according to the memo, it will have to “be strategic in the selection of members who can support fundraising efforts.”

Currently, three of Peaslee Tech’s board members are appointed by the Lawrence City Commission and four are appointed by the Douglas County Commission. Under the new structure, the board chair will receive nominations, which could be approved “by majority vote of members of the Board of Directors whose terms are not expiring.” Six of the board members will be selected in this way; the seventh will be the Douglas County administrator or their designee.

• Held a work session with the Douglas County Public Works department to discuss funding for the maintenance of paved county roads. Public Works is asking for more funding to maintain paved roads because the current budget of $1,202,500 has stayed the same for five years, despite rising costs and road wear. For 2026, it is requesting an additional $497,500, bringing the total to $1.7 million.

The department shared a plan on Wednesday that says that increasing the budget is necessary to avoid more expensive repairs in the future. Without the increase, the county risks having to do full road reconstructions instead of cheaper preventative maintenance, according to a memo in the agenda.

• Approved two emergency communications-related agreements with Motorola Solutions Inc. One of them, for roughly $2.6 million, is for the county’s simulcast radio services, which are used by public safety agencies, public works, the Humane Society and more. The county’s contract with Motorola for these services expires at the end of July, and the new agreement would run for five years.

The other agreement is for maintenance of a software system used by emergency responders, dispatchers and other public safety entities called Motorola Flex. This agreement will cost just over $1 million over the next five years.

• Approved the 2025 annual review of the Douglas/Jefferson County Regional Solid Waste Management Plan, which outlines how the two counties manage solid waste. According to a memo in the agenda, no significant changes to the plan are required at this time.

• Agreed to allow alcohol sales for the Summerfest Independence Day celebration set for July 3 at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. A memo in the agenda said the event will include activities and a drone show. Last year, a mix of heavy rain and a failure of Wi-Fi and satellite communications forced the city to call off the drone show.