Fate rests in hands of 10 area counties

ECBH continues to manage local care

By REGGIE PONDER
Staff Writer

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Officials from the 10 counties in the Albemarle Mental Health Center area plan to meet in the next few months to decide the future of mental health service management in the region.

New Bern-based East Carolina Behavioral Health has managed the AMHC region since July 1 on behalf of the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. The AMHC Board of Directors turned management of the Albemarle agency over to the state in January following the release of a targeted review by DMH that found critical financial problems and gaps in service delivery.

Now county officials in the 10 counties — Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Hyde, Washington, Tyrrell and Martin — hold the keys to the future of mental health services in the region. The counties could opt to merge with ECBH or revert to a reconstituted AMHC.

Pasquotank County Manager Randy Keaton said last week that county managers in the region had discussed possibly holding a joint meeting of county commissioners from the 10 counties to discuss the next steps in the process.

“I think we’ve got to make some decisions by early next year,” Keaton said.

Meanwhile, the Albemarle Mental Health Center Board of Directors is in a kind of limbo. The board turned over management to DMH as a temporary measure but didn’t vote itself out of existence. Yet board members say they have not been kept up to date about developments at AMHC since the state takeover.

Pasquotank Commissioner Cecil Perry, a member of the AMHC Board, said he and other board members have not received updates from state officials since the board voted to turn operations over to the state’s Division of Mental Health in January.

“They have no conversation with us as a board,” Perry said.

Perry said he thinks the board would resume its responsibility when the state turns the program back over to the counties sometime next year.

He said the lack of information is frustrating.

“There are commissioners that are asking questions that I can’t answer,” Perry said.

John Morrison, attorney for the AMHC Board, said he believes the board is on hiatus but remains in place under state law.

“It would be my opinion that unless the state has taken some formal action to dissolve it that it does exist,” Morrison said

“The board understood that the state would use their expertise to correct the situation and then return it to the board for management,” he added. “This was not a hostile takeover. The board requested them to do that.”

Dissolving the board would take action of the N.C. General Assembly, Morrison said. In considering dissolution, state officials would be required by state law to consult with the 10 counties that are constituent members of Albemarle Mental Health, he added.

A spokesman for DMH said Friday there would be some kind of board for the region once the state turns the program back over to the 10 counties. He said it would be up to the counties who would serve on the board.