A2Politico: County Pols Plan to “Protect” the Mental Health Millage. They’re Five Years Late & $35M Short

by P.D. Lesko

The 2016 Mental Health and Public Safety Millage was the brainchild of County Commissioner Andy LaBarre (District 7). It was the perfect way to get voters to pony up tens of additional millions for two of the poorest run and least accountable agencies in Washtenaw County (Community Mental Health and the County Sheriff). The Millage was sold to desperate and kind-hearted taxpayers as extra money to expand mental health resources for County residents both through Community Mental Health and the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Dept. Voters were assured the Millage would improve public safety throughout the County.

County Commissioners recently voted to put a renewal of the Millage on the Nov. 2024 ballot.

Andy LaBarre has been on the County’s Millage Advisory Committee (MAC) since 2019 (the first year millage funds were made available to governmental units). Given the pervasive abuse of the Millage funds by CMH and Sheriff’s Dept. leadership uncovered through public records, one concludes the Three Visually Impaired Mice could have done a better job of oversight on the MAC over the past five years. The MAC’s mission? “[T]o provide strategic oversight regarding Washtenaw County’s Public Safety and Mental Health Millage activities and investments.”

The 13-member advisory committee, a subcommittee of the Washtenaw County Community Mental Health Board, was supposed to report to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, as required. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. Who was ever going to object to Trish Cortes using Mental Health Millage money to pay Issue Media Group for puff “news” coverage of her professional “successes,” or in utilizing her additional millage money on a PR consulting firm, or for buying billboards to benefit a Sheriff candidate’s campaign?

At this point, thanks to some spectacularly scandalous public spending, and subsequent attacks on the media and members of the public who have questioned the Commissioners’ handling of public money, I wouldn’t trust Andy LaBarre or any other County Commissioner to oversee a roll of pennies on a perfectly flat surface; the money would somehow roll away and “disappear.”

Did any of the 13 members of MAC ever read the online reviews of CMH after the Millage was implemented? Did they read the reviews by CMH’s disgruntled employees, and the reviews of the even more desperate, disgruntled and ill-treated “customers?” Probably not.

The brutal truth of the reviews might have sent the MAC members scurrying to their private-pay therapists for consolation and perhaps a soupçon of Ativan.

On Google, CMH services and service providers are rated 2.3 stars out of five. Read ’em and weep:

“Do not waste your time. Ask them to email you a list of resources. They also don’t offer counseling. I think they need to stop pushing patients out the door before they are in.” -Danielle Zimmerman, Feb. 2024.

“It’s the worst place I’ve ever seen. All the psych facilities in America or Michigan, I’ve seen are bad and miserable. But this is the worst that I’ve seen!!” -Alaq Almedrasy, Nov. 2023

“This mental health system finally broke me…abandoned by whomever was supposed to be helping me every step of the way. Drs Madjar and Bright seemed to care but every other person or “team” let me drop through the cracks; now I’ll be on the street,alone at 64 to try and survive.” -Heidi Buffalino

“Their limited resources will leave you in the streets or at one of the facilities. Baker Commons, miller manner, Aspen chase. The worst places to ever exist in.” -Daniel Hansen, Apr. 2022

And on and on and on and on. These reviews are from after the Mental Health and Public Safety Millage was passed by voters.

A series of investigative articles in 2023 and 2024 by the Ann Arbor Independent using public record requests and the County’s online checkbook revealed how the Millage money was actually spent.

Records revealed CMH Dir. Trish Cortes had spent almost $1 million on a PR consulting firm and paid puff news coverage. Public records revealed Cortes had also spent Mental Health Millage money on AAATA bus ads and billboards that featured the gap-toothed smiling face of Derrick Jackson, a Sheriff’s Dept. employee and presently a candidate for Sheriff. It was a hideous abuse of Millage money that was supposed to be used to help people.

Perhaps in answer to the newspaper’s reporting, and to save his millage from taxpayers inclined to vote down pickpocket schemes, Commissioner LaBarre recently announced he is in favor of forming a public safety advisory body that would oversee the Sheriff’s use of funds from the Mental Health and Public Safety Millage.

The Sheriff? What about CMH? Andy LaBarre is five years too late and $25-$35 million short.

How’d sussing the Sheriff an additional $5 million a year for mental health and public safety work out? In 2023, Washtenaw County saw more murders than ever before. Sheriff Clayton’s employees have retired and resigned in droves. Deputies who work in the County Jail face forced overtime due to a staffing crisis. Clayton, desperate to fill open positions, in 2019 hired a Deputy despite the fact the applicant was under investigation for allegedly having committed serial rapes when a student at EMU.

Sheriff Clayton used his Mental Health and Public Safety Millage money to buy guns and ammo, a boat, paint the jail, to make purchases from a company that produced employee recognition materials, and on other dubious expenditures taxpayers were never told about.

At a recent Sheriff’s candidate event, Derrick Jackson tried to convince the audience that using Mental Health and Public Safety Millage money to paint the jail was really about mental health. If anyone ever had questions about why Jerry Clayton has endorsed and given thousands of dollars through a PAC to Jackson, Derrick’s earnest effort to justify the diversion of public millage funds should clear up any confusion. Apple. Tree.

Public records revealed that Andy LaBarre’s Mental Health and Public Safety Millage quickly devolved into a multi-million dollar boondoggle/slush fund.

In an April 2, 2024 “News Flash” purchased by CMH from its PR company with Millage funds, one of the successes of the Millage touted was this: “In addition to the community funding, 29 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions at WCCMH have been funded by the millage—a 15% increase in WCCMH staff over the last five years.”

In 2021, this PR puff piece paid for with Mental Health Millage money paid to Impact Media (Concentrate) was fed to an unsuspecting public: “Washtenaw’s mental health millage attracts press, serving as a model for others communities.”

A model in how to fail the most vulnerable, and treat taxpayers like chumps, maybe.

As we see from the customer reviews above, the focus on PR puffery and jobs created versus improving the overall quality of services and focusing on positive mental health outcomes, speaks volumes about the Millage’s failure thanks to the lack of oversight by County Commissioners and LaBarre’s MAC.

In a March 24, 2024 article, Sheriff Clayton spoke about the potential impacts of him losing $5 million in Millage money from his $124 million budget (4 percent). He was more dramatic than a teenager threatened with the loss of a red convertible paid for by parents.

He told The Manchester Mirror: “[A] small minority of those in our county do not understand the value that the millage brings, are unaware of the programs that have been implemented or the progress that has been made. If the millage is not put on the ballot this fall for a vote or does not pass a vote of the people, community wellness and safety in Washtenaw County will be devastated. The county would be forced to choose between a huge blow to its budget or leaving many of our county residents without the necessary police services or protection.”

What with the Sheriff having used Millage money to buy guns and ammo, a boat, to paint the jail and foisting felon-controlled patrols on Ypsilanti Twp. neighborhoods against the wishes of elected officials, methinks the Sheriff doth protest too much.

Here’s a sample of the progress made by the Sheriff using his Millage funds: there were thirty murders in Washtenaw County in 2023 alone, including murders by suspects who underwent (and failed) competency exams. it’s not a stretch to say a large majority of County residents are already without competent and necessary police services and protection, particularly the out-county cities and townships. Those poor souls pay their County taxes and pay the Sheriff $190,000 in protection money per deputy for patrol services.

Taxpayers didn’t get what they were told they would get when the Mental Health and Public Safety Millage was first put on the ballot. We were promised expanded, higher quality mental health services for people in need. We were promised improved public safety. We still need both, but renewing the Millage won’t provide either.

The County Commissioners stubbornly refused to rework the language of the Millage renewal proposal they voted to put on the Nov. 2024 ballot. This means if the Millage is renewed by voters we’ll see the same pickpockets pickpocketing the same over-taxed County taxpayers.

Renew the Mental Health and Public Safety Millage? As your CMH psychiatrist might tell you, if you can get an appointment: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.