A request for $100,000 in funding for the purchase of a motel for transitional housing by John Bennett of UConnect Care, was fairly quickly moved onto Wednesday’s Ways & Means meeting after Genesee County Legislator Marianne Clattenburg voiced concerns about what she deemed questionable use of taxpayer funds Monday.

Some county legislators agreed, albeit reservedly, to walk the walk Monday when it comes to participating in a Healthy Places By Design Walkability Academy.

Genesee County Public Health Director Paul Pettit presented the academy program during the county's Human Services Committee meeting. Operated by the Walkability Action Institute  (WAI) and Walkability Virtual Academy (WVA), the national-based program is a yearly multi-day course for interdisciplinary teams comprising public health, transportation, planning, and elected officials, Pettit said.

He had received information about a learning academy last November, "where they bring in communities to participate and learn about different strategies and ways to make your communities more walkable, likable, safe, those types of things, active living," he said. He didn’t have enough time to apply then, he said, so he let it go. But apparently, he wasn't the only one in a time crunch around the holidays.

“I got an email a couple of weeks ago that said, ‘Hey, we didn't have enough applicants. If you want to apply, you can be in it, you just have to submit the RFP.’ I talked to (County Planning Director Felipe Oltramari) and my folks, and we felt we could put something together and get it in. It's 12 virtual sessions, there's no travel or anything associated with it, it’s all via zoom, and will allow us to participate …and work on developing some comprehensive planning around this area," Pettit said. “And the goal would be to look at our villages and our city and come up with different strategies,. And in my mind, it's really a way that we can kind of lay the foundation and framework for future funding.”

There are 18 participating groups across the country, and they would each receive a grant of about $5,000, which Pettit admitted wasn’t a huge payoff in and of itself.

“It would allow us to work on comprehensive planning for our villages and the city,” he said. “We would look at sidewalks, crosswalks, signs, things that people find challenging.”

Legislator Gregg Torrey was concerned with the time involvement of team members.

“It seems like a big commitment on our side, for a small grant commitment on their side,” he said.

Fellow Legislator Christian Yunker agreed.

“It seems like a lot of staff time … seems like a significant effort (for what the county is getting).”

The project would probably require five to six people for the academy, including at least one elected official, Pettit said. Yunker clarified that it doesn’t have to be a legislator, and it could be someone from the city, which Pettit confirmed.

Legislator Gary Maha asked if participation would put the county in line for additional funding, and Pettit didn't think so.

No one expressed interest in participating during the meeting, but Legislators Torrey, Yunker, Maha, Gordon Dibble, Brooks Hawley and John Deleo approved Pettit’s request to apply for the program.

According to the Healthy Places by Design website, Healthy Places by Design participates as WAI/WVA faculty and co-facilitates the Community of Practice. The CoP is a peer learning and exchange network of WAI/WVA alumni that continue to build their capacity to implement policy, systems, and environmental changes to make communities more walkable, moveable, equitable, and inclusive. In addition, the team co-designed, drafted, and finalized the Active Community Tool that communities can use to assess local built environment, planning, and policy supports for physical activity.

The WAI/WVA training is a critical component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's efforts to increase walkability, the site states. The training includes walking audits, discussion sessions with peers, capacity building, and virtual workshops with various leaders in the walkability movement. Each local WAI team formalizes what they learn by creating a detailed action plan for their community. In many cases, these action plans help drive positive change in regional transportation systems to support safety, health, equity, and disability inclusion.

 “When communities are built for all of us, and with all of us in mind, nobody gets left out. I’ve learned that this work has to proactively make the effort to address unintended consequences of successful walkability efforts so that we continually try to improve more than solely health by integrating place-based approaches, inclusion of all kinds, and working to improve social justice,," said Public Health Consultant Karma Harris, of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and Walkability and Healthy Communities Lead.

This isn’t the first time this community has undertaken a similar-type study. In 2017, City Council, under the leadership of then-City Manager Jason Molino, approved a planning and design consulting firm to assist the city with a comprehensive plan update that involved meeting with businesses, residents and staff members to understand various challenges faced within the city.

There have also been initiatives to actually walk throughout portions of the city to take note of the condition — or lack — of sidewalks, wheelchair access, crosswalks, stop signs versus street lights, and other considerations for people trying to navigate the area as a pedestrian.

Goals for the Walkability Academy are to:

• Spark, strengthen and sustain collaboration between diverse organizations that strive to create healthier communities.
• Inspire effective partnerships by being good partners as a teaching academy and modeling honesty, authenticity and transparency in relationships, and providing a platform for others to share their stories of progress.
• Expand collaborative learning opportunities.

Photo of Paul Pettit, front left, Gordon Dibble, County Clerk Lisa Casey, Gregg Torrey, Brooks Hawley, Gary Maha and Christian Yunker, in back, and John Deleo, right, by Joanne Beck.

After biding her time with a glaring vacancy, Mental Health and Community Services Director Lynda Battaglia broached the topic during Tuesday’s Human Services meeting.

“So this is one that I've talked about for well over a year now, and it's finally time to bring this one forward. This is a creation of a full-time, Genesee County psychiatrist position for the Department of Mental Health. There's no doubt that this is a bigger ask, considering the salary. But it's a specialized service. And it's definitely something that's needed within the department,” Battaglia said to the group of committee members. “Right now, our wait time for somebody to get in with a psychiatrist is about six weeks. And that's when we have all of our providers. I'd like to create this position so that it benefits the community, and it benefits the clients that need to get access to provider treatments. I have to think about stability within the department as well as future planning and longevity for psychiatry.”

She requested an amendment to the 2022 management salary schedule to create one full-time staff psychiatrist (Community Mental Health) position at a base salary range of $292,500 to $331,500. That would mean an estimated salary of between $73,125 and $82,872 for the remainder of the year’s last quarter, at a fee of $150 to $170 per hour.

Fringe benefits would add up to about $21,000 more, for a quarter total of up to $103,814, according to the resolution. Battaglia doesn’t expect these costs to impact the existing 2022 budget, considering the unstaffed positions within the Mental Health Department.

There are four clinical positions and three in the finance area that have been vacant, she said. It may not be an easy job to recruit a psychiatrist to a rural area, but it would certainly add some consistency to the department, she said.

“For the last three years, we've worked with an agency to provide us with services. And that has been helpful, it has definitely been a Band-Aid and has helped fill the gap. However, in the three years, I've had my third psychiatrist. And you think about a person that comes through mental health for services, you're taking a risk every time you have a doctor that's providing the telehealth services. And if it doesn't work out, then I'm bringing in a new psychiatrist. And if that one doesn't work out, I'm bringing in another one,” she said.

“And the agency that I've gone through has been absolutely tremendous," she added. "They’re very accommodating, with excellent communication. The doctor has to be the right fit. And so to have one client have to work with three different doctors over the course of their treatment, it's very challenging, and it's frustrating the clients.”

An upside is that the position could generate revenue and potentially become self-sustaining and not cost the county additional money, she said. It could also reduce the wait time from six to three weeks, which still isn’t ideal, but “if we can cut it in half,” that’s an improvement.

Battaglia proposed creating the position as a hybrid, including in-person visits and telehealth appointments, as an incentive for the right person. She doesn’t want to offer 100 percent telehealth and feels that a hybrid model offers two options to deliver the service. That might better accommodate an applicant, and “we have clients and community members that like to do either way,” she said.

“I think for 2023, it would definitely save the county some money,” she said. “I feel like it’s a win-win all the way around.”

County Manager Matt Landers reiterated how Battaglia has been talking about this need “for quite some time.” Simply put, it sounds like a breakeven proposition, he said.

“Instead of contracting out, you're paying a county employee, and there’s potential for generating additional revenue — more billable hours — which would generate more revenue. Now we're not doing this to make money. And at the same time, if this ended up being a subsidized effort, but ended up providing better service to the community, again, it will be something that the manager's office would support,” he said. “Even going down this route and approving this, that's step one, and it's really going to be a challenge to find a qualified doctor willing to come to us, you know, rural counties have this difficulty. So, in general, I support the effort going forward, because it's not going to be budgetarily … negative to our county budget. And it's got the full support of mental health, but I think we can provide better service.”

Battaglia also requested a budget amendment to hire a full-time mental health financial program specialist position, which would cost $19,553.50 for the remainder of this year. There are funds available in the 2022 budget to cover this expense due to unstaffed positions within the department. This position for a full year will cost $78,214, according to the resolution.

The committee approved the requests, which will continue on the process for committee approval until they finally reach the Legislature for final adoption.

Photo: Lynda Battaglia, Director of Mental Health and Community Services. Photo from the county website.