Bannock County commissioners approve contract for behavioral health crisis center

It’s now official – the region 6 behavioral health crisis center is coming to Bannock County.

In their meeting Friday morning, the Bannock County commissioners approved a contract for the crisis center.

The commissioners approved a deal to open the crisis center through state funding. The contract includes an initial $200,000, and a total of $1.5 million each year from the state. That amount per year will gradually decrease as the center becomes fully operational.

“Basically what will happen is the county will act as the fiscal agent,” commissioner Terrel Tovey explained. “The state will disperse funds to the county. It’s the county’s responsibility with the governance board to put out a request for proposal – an RFP – to have companies that would actually run and manage the crisis center to the standards required by the state. Then the county will be the one that will pay those monies out as they are received from the state right now.”

The county previously tried multiple times to pass a bond to get the funding for the center, but it never got the super majority needed. So the commissioners looked at other options because, Tovey said, they needed a solution because it’s a problem that isn’t going away.

“We are a high-dit county, which is a high distribution of opioids – one of the highest in the nation right now,” Tovey explained. “This is a problem that’s affecting us directly. It’s affecting us in all departments – law enforcement, probation, incarceration with the jail, our coroner’s office with all the autopsies for the amount of opioid overdoses. It is a county-wide issue and problem that has to be addressed.”

“I think we will see a large reduction in the recidivism rates of Bannock County and that’s what we’re hoping,” Tovey continued. “And to take the burden off the jail – and to take people, they don’t need to go to jail – they need treatment, they need help, we need to have them be contributing members of society, not sitting in a jail cell.”

One of the options that eventually became the solution is for a public-private partnership between the county and companies to run and manage the center. The main partner who stepped up for the agreement is the Portneuf Health Trust.

Tovey said the next step now that contracts are signed will be to establish the governance board for the center.

He said as per the contract agreement, the center is expected to be up and running by Jan. 1, 2019.

As for locations, Tovey said the health trust is looking at a few options right now and talking to land owners but nothing has been finalized. He said as soon as a location or building is picked, it will be publicly announced.