photo by: Journal-World

The Douglas County Courthouse.

Douglas County’s new behavioral health treatment center has served nearly 800 people since its opening in April, and patients have been staying about two days on average, according to statistics that county leaders will discuss in more detail on Wednesday.

At a work session before the Douglas County Commission’s meeting on Wednesday, Director of Behavioral Health Projects Bob Tryanski will present a “performance review” of the Treatment and Recovery Center of Douglas County. That will include a number of key statistics, including the center’s wait times, hiring and staff retention rates and milestones that the center has achieved so far.

The work session will also review the center’s finances for the 2023 and 2024 budget years. According to a presentation included in the meeting’s agenda materials, the budget for 2023 had originally envisioned about $8.8 million in revenue, but the center’s projected revenue for 2023 is about $6.8 million. The 2024 operating budget has been revised to be $1 million larger than originally envisioned, according to the presentation: it was originally $10.4 million, but has been revised to $11.5 million. The reasons for the change weren’t immediately clear, but commissioners are expected to get more details Wednesday.

According to a memo from Tryanski to the commission, the presentation will also include a timeline for the formation of a Treatment and Recovery Center advisory group.

As the Journal-World reported, the center’s services include triage assessments, psychiatric medical evaluations and prescriptions, referrals to other providers and more. Wednesday’s discussion is a work session, meaning commissioners are not expected to take any action related to the center at that time.

In other business, commissioners will:

• Consider “prequalifying” two area contractors, B.A. Green Construction and Icon Structures, for “on-call contractor services” for small or medium-sized construction projects.

If the commission votes to prequalify the contractors, they will become the first two names on a list of “on-call contractors,” according to a memo from Jay Zimmerschied, the county’s director of capital projects. That would mean their qualifications had already been vetted by county staff, and county leaders could choose for certain projects to solicit bids and proposals only from the contractors on the list, rather than going through a more time-consuming “request for proposals” process.

Zimmerschied’s memo said that the qualifications submitted by B.A. Green and Icon were the only two “compliant bids” that the county received after it opened its request for on-call contractor qualifications in June. More contractors could be added to the list later.

Douglas County spokesperson Karrey Britt told the Journal-World that the procedure was common for construction projects at the local and state levels: “The State of Kansas, University of Kansas, Johnson County Government, and City of Lawrence all have and use a similar policy for procurement of construction services on their projects.” She said that larger and more complex projects such as the planned remodeling of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center would still “go through a request for proposal, competitive bid or other form of construction delivery method that would be reviewed and approved” by county commissioners.

The commission’s work session begins at 4 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets. The regular meeting follows at 5:30 p.m. The meeting can be viewed via Zoom. The agenda packet can be found on the county’s website, douglascountyks.org.