Mental health center officials describe changes, request restoring county funding
- Charlene Sims, Journal staff
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
By Charlene Sims, Journal staff
MOUND CITY – Representatives of Southeast Mental Health Center (SEKMHC), interim CEO Doug Wright and Chief Financial Officer Amber Morrison met with the Linn County Commissioners on Monday, June 15, to update them on the changes at the mental health center and to ask for funding for the 2027 budget.
Wright highlighted changes that had happened at the six-county mental health center over the past few months since several southeast Kansas county commissioners expressed their concerns and replaced SEKMHC board members because of the high salaries the upper-level administrators were receiving at the center. All six counties (Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Linn, Neosho and Woodson) currently have at least one county commissioner on the board.
Former CEO Nathan Fawson was removed as director on April 30. Fawson, whose salary exceeded $650,000, was at first suspended with pay for 90 days in January 2026 by the new board composed of at least one commissioner from each county.
Wright was appointed interim director when Fawson was suspended in January.
Wanderley Reis, director of business development was also dismissed by the board several months ago.
The increase in salaries came about when SEKMHC received a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) grant to expand its services and employees. The organization providing this grant recommended that the SEKMHC increase salaries in order to get and retain staff.
According to a report by SEKMHC board member Tisha Coleman at the Dec. 29, 2025, commission meeting, the mental health center under the CCBHC certification had expanded greatly. She said, in 2015, there were 3,679 individuals that were served compared to 2024 when 25,906 were served, a 604% increase, she said. Growth and services that were provided went from 117,036 to 313,000 annually, a 168% increase,
And the work force expansion in 2015 went from 208 employees to nearly 600, a 180% increase, Coleman said. The budget at the beginning of the year $8 million and increased to $75 million.
Wright highlighted the results of the changes that have happened under the new board and administration:
SEKMHC has separated from doing primary care so the Ashley Clinic is no longer a part of the organization.
The mental health center has separated from dental, so the organization is only a community mental health center CCHC.
They are only doing mental health and substance abuse type of treatment.
None of the staff from management on down are the highest paid in the state compared to others. For upper management, that meant pretty large cuts.
The center getting back in line with other mental health centers was an important step.
With the changes the mental health center made, it is faced with needing to repay the state some funding. And so it is under a structured repayment plan, which has made the center’s finances much tighter.
Even after the executive cuts, a 12.5% across-the-board salary reduction for all employees was made to stabilize the organization.
“But we are still able to provide all the mental health services that we did,” Wright said. “All of the enhanced service that came about with CCBHC, such as medication assisted treatment, some of our ACT team, crisis services. All of those enhanced services since CCBHC, remain intact for all of our counties.
“So we don’t really foresee any changes with that. Here in Linn County our services have continued to grow. In the the last year we provided a little over $171,000 in indigent services.
“So as a community mental health center, we’re formed by the counties. There’s not necessarily a funding requirement, as you know, for counties, but what we can do is use those county funds to offset some of our costs that aren’t covered by CCBHC such as services for the indigent as well as a lot of our crisis services.
“If a person has Medicaid and is in crisis, those services are covered by CCBHC funding. But if they don’t, if they’re indigent or even a lot of private insurances they don’t cover crisis services. It’s an exclusion.
“And so that’s where we look for other funding resources such as from counties. And so with the changes we’ve made, we would ask that the commission consider restoring our funding to what it was the previous year which was about $68,000.”
In 2025, the Linn County Commission voted to not fund SEKMHC for 2026.
Commissioner Alison Hamilton asked if the representative from SEKMH was still attending the county meetings that were being held on homelessness.
Wright said he believed they were and added, “I think homelessness is an important issue in rural areas. I think often we don’t think there’s that many homeless because it’s not like, you know, a major city where you see people out.
“But we have a lot of precariously housed people within our counties that I sort of call it couch surf. They’re at this place and then they’re at that place, and then maybe they’re not in a place. So I think that’s an important issue and I think the economics of our counties have increased some of the homelessness here. So it think it’s an important issue.”
“Have other counties ever allocated the funds or can the counties allocate what you do with the funds?” Hamilton asked. “You’re requesting $68,000. Does it just go to indigent persons or can we allocate where you guys use those funds?”
Wright answered, “They have not, but I do not know that means that they can’t. I would assume that they couldn’t in some ways. We would have to make sure that they aren’t going to the Medicaid funds, because at CCBHC that’s meant to be cost-based and cover that. So we would have to apply those somehow for non-Medicaid. I am not aware of anything that says you can’t.”
Hamilton said that it is definitely a subject for discussion and that the commissioners would probably have more questions later.
Commissioners made no commitment to restore the funding.
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