{"id":45687,"date":"2025-08-04T23:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T23:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45687\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T23:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T23:26:08","slug":"more-counties-pull-support-for-sek-mental-health-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45687\/","title":{"rendered":"More counties pull support for SEK Mental Health Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linn and Neosho County commissions virtually eliminated their financial support of the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center last week. Linn County commissioners voted to contribute $0 for both 2025 and 2026, while Neosho County commissioners revised their 2025 contribution to a single dollar.<\/p>\n

They join Allen and Anderson counties, whose commissions have moved in the past weeks to contribute<\/a> just $1 each for 2026. Anderson County\u2019s commission also declined to release their 3rd and 4th quarter contributions for 2025.<\/p>\n

The Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center serves a six-county area, including Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Linn, Neosho and Woodson counties.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the six counties have collectively contributed about $550,000, around 1% of the center\u2019s total budget. Those funds help pay for services for those who lack health insurance or are unable to pay.<\/p>\n

That amount is set to be drastically reduced, with four of the counties \u2013 Allen, Anderson, Linn, and Neosho \u2013 now set to contribute a total of merely $3.<\/p>\n

Woodson County\u2019s 2026 budget includes $35,000 for SEKMHC, a decrease from this year\u2019s contribution of $41,180.<\/p>\n

Requests for information from the Bourbon County clerk were not returned by deadline.<\/p>\n

IN THEIR July 28 commission meeting, Linn County commissioners discussed their relationship with SEKMHC<\/a> and public concern regarding administrative salaries at the organization.<\/p>\n

Jason Hightower, Alison Hamilton and Jim Johnson, all Republicans, serve as its county commissioners. In 2024, Linn County contributed $68,000. They were scheduled to contribute $70,040 this year.<\/p>\n

Johnson filled an empty seat on SEKMHC\u2019s governing board in June. He began the discussion noting how other counties had reduced their financial support.<\/p>\n

After some discussion, Hamilton suggested an openness to increased communication with SEKMHC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would we not expect\u00a0them to take $70,000 and come in here and at least tell us what they\u2019re doing to help in our community with mental health? Wouldn\u2019t you want that $70,000 to go back into our community if that\u2019s what you\u2019re giving them?\u201d asked Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of what you give them, I would just like to know what they\u2019re doing to help us in our community with our citizens,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe\u2019re asking for things, we\u2019ve heard concerns from citizens, and I think it\u2019s a good opportunity to build a partnership with them, connect with them, see what they can help us with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson, however, remained focused on the issue of administrative salaries, \u201cWe\u2019ve given them a lot of money over the years and not gotten anything out of it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have people in management positions making over $400,000, over $600,000 of income, in southeast Kansas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Johnson proposed contributing just $1 for 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like $1. Why a dollar?\u201d asked Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Linn and Neosho County commissions virtually eliminated their financial support of the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,32029,393,394,32030,32031,32032],"class_list":["post-45687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-linn-county-commission","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-neosho-county-commission","tag-sekmhc","tag-southeast-kansas-mental-health-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}