Oneida supervisors vote to withdraw from Human Services board

By a 19-2 vote, the Oneida County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week to give notice to withdraw from the current Tri-County Human Services Board effective December 31, 2024.

The human services board, which includes Forest and Vilas counties, oversees operations of the Human Service Center (HSC), which provides behavioral health services, assists law enforcement agencies in crisis situations and potential emergency detentions, as well as works with the counties’ social services departments in various program areas.

Complaints about deficient services have persisted for years, and studies going back as far as 2009 indicate that many of the same concerns existed then as now. 

In passing the notice of withdrawal, county officials said that the end of 2024 timeline would give the county time to explore options for a new structure for the delivery of services.

Oneida County has not been alone in expressing concerns and criticisms. Representatives from Vilas and Forest counties attended the Oneida board meeting in support of Oneida County’s withdrawal, including, among others, representatives from the Vilas and Forest counties’ corporation counsel offices, as well as Vilas County social services and Vilas County law enforcement. 

Those officials have indicated that similar action could come soon from those counties.

HSC officials, clients defend agency

The meeting was well attended by representatives from both sides, and many opposing the resolution and supporting the current Human Service Center spoke with passion and emotion.

They lodged major complaints that development of the withdrawal resolution had not included input from the HSC, and they alleged that officials were pushing the withdrawal resolution without having any plan in place to replace the HSC, which they say risks causing serious harm to vulnerable populations.

HSC board member Bill Korrer called the resolution weak. 

“It offers no basis for the withdrawal other than three employees per county who think that that’s the direction to go,” Korrer said. “No details, no examples, no reasons.”

Korrer said the resolution essentially dissolved the current Tri-County Human Service Center.

“[Doing that] before a replacement organization agreement is signed, sealed and delivered is downright lunacy,” he said. “It’s a bad direction to go. Are these actions today going to ensure being able to deliver quality services to the citizens of Oneida County and the Human Service Center’s clients for the 15 months leading up to the total closure on December 31st, 2024 without a replacement structure ready to go?”

Korrer said he doubted it.

“There’s a big black cloud of job security and uncertainty floating over the Human Service Center and passing this resolution is going to open the exit gates pretty wide, and we all know what it’s like trying to attract quality candidates nowadays,” he said. “Passage of this resolution is going to amount to a hiring freeze over on Timber Drive where the Human Service Center is located and all this really makes me wonder what the real end game is.”

The HSC executive director, Tamara Feest, talked about what she said was the abiding commitment of HSC employees.

“The Human Service Center has been in existence for 50 years,” Feest said. “For nearly 30 of those years, I have worked at the Human Service Center in various capacities. Throughout this time I have never witnessed anything but deep, genuine commitment to those individuals and families that we serve.”

Unfortunately, Feest said, in the past several months, there appeared to be a lack of interest in hearing from the Human Services board, as well as a lack of transparency, understanding, and disregard for the authority of the HSC board.

“Despite all of that, one thing you need to consider is that passing this resolution today without a plan is one of the greatest disservices that could be done to the residents of Oneida County,” she said. “If you pass this resolution without a plan, you are contributing to the oppression and stigma that many of the individuals we serve already feel in their daily lives.”

Feest said the message appeared to be that the HSC and the people it serves don’t matter enough for the county to put forethought into a plan for delivering services.

“This is evidenced by the numerous inquiries we have received from those that we serve,” she said. “So much focus has been on behavioral health services that I wonder how many of you know there’s a whole other population of residents that we serve—those with developmental or intellectual disabilities.”

Feest said she had not heard any discussion about the children and families who utilize those services. 

“I urge you to think about members of your family, your community, your neighbors, and your friends who may have faced challenges with mental illness, substance abuse or developmental delays and how moving forward without a plan and how having to wait seven months to know where or how you might receive services in the future would affect your ability to sustain,” she said. 

Angel Swenson, a peer support specialist at the HSC, said she wanted to speak on a personal as well as professional level.

“My life was saved [by] the Human Service Center,” Swenson said. “If it wasn’t for them, I probably wouldn’t be alive today, nor would I have my children.”

Swenson said the HSC got her into treatment and now she gets to work next to the woman who got her there. 

“I see every day people struggle on the inside and the outside and I feel that dismantling the Human Service Center would cause chaos in the addiction world …. I owe my life to the Human Service Center and I know a lot of other people do too. Please consider this when you make your decision.”

A different perspective

But others said the HSC itself was failing those in need.

Tim Johnson, a patrol sergeant with the Oneida County Sheriff's Office, said the HSC provided poor quality services to those in mental crisis. 

“I have personally experienced, in my job capacity, crisis screeners not placing mental commitments on individuals who have attempted an overact of harming themselves or others,” Johnson said. “For example, a female who sent messages to her family telling them goodbye and deputies finding her in a public park unconscious and slumped over at the wheel. I observed as deputies administered CPR and Narcan, bringing her back to life, only for the crisis screener to place a safety plan and allow her to go home after medical clearance.”

In another instance, Johnson said he witnessed a veteran who was pleading for help, only to get asked in the first few seconds from a crisis screener on the phone what the veteran’s health insurance company was. Johnson said the demeanor in the veteran’s face changed to disgust and rage.

“The screeners no longer do in-person screenings, handling the mental evaluations over the phone, often ignoring deputies’ recommendations or observations that are present with these people,” he said. “Long wait times for call-back evaluations, inconsistency in what a commitment is and what it is not, refusal to do an evaluation because the individual is under the influence, even though an act of self-harm was attempted or planned.”

Johnson said safety plans and the decisions not to place individuals on mental commitment have become the norm, and in some cases deputies return to the residence a short time later only to find that the situation has gotten worse. 

“This creates officer safety issues for law enforcement because the individual’s crisis state has deteriorated,” he said. “… [A] recent example was when an individual reported themselves as being suicidal, a safety plan was put in place, and weeks later this person, while in a public place within feet of other people, placed a loaded shotgun in their mouth and took their own life. These are just a few of many issues that the Human Service Center has displayed on a regular basis and the citizens of Oneida County deserve better quality service than what is currently being provided.”

Oneida County sheriff Grady Hartman said the delivery system for HSC services was archaic.

“Our current system (of delivery of services) brings the Human Service Center into the mix, and ultimately that board was formed,” Hartman said. “I believe that it is an antiquated system; 64 of the 72 counties are having that service done in-house through social services. There’s not a push to go to conglomerates now.”

Hartman said law enforcement, corporation counsels’ offices and social services agencies must deal with the Human Service Center on a daily basis.

“We stand in solidarity that those services are not being provided in the best management that they could be,” he said. “That’s why we asked for the change.”

Hartman said his department and other agencies had tried to have discussions with the HSC for years to “meet in the middle” and spur change.

“We’ve tried all of the professional things behind the scenes,” he said. “We’ve tried the meetings and the memos and the emails and the discussions for years to get a change, to meet in the middle, to find some common ground.” 

But Hartman said he had yet to hear anyone from the other side say, “We’re going to give a little and take a little and come to the middle.”

“It boils down to this: we just fundamentally disagree with how this service that you’re required to provide is handed out in Oneida County,” he said. “It’s just that simple. We’re asking for you to support the resolution to end it.”

Hartman said he had heard that some people wanted to table the resolution but he said that would be a mistake.

“To quote the old phrase, to be unclear is to be unkind,” he said. “I think Oneida County needs to be clear that we’re going to move forward from this current system we have and we’re going to provide the service in a different manner.”

Hartman said he knew that people were fighting for their jobs.

“We’ve had discussions, behind closed doors, Mary [social services director Rideout] and I especially,” he said. “We need those employees and Oneida County’s going to have to hire those people. They’re important and we want to bring some on staff and so does Vilas and so does Forest.”

Contrary to what many said, Hartman said there was a plan in place for the future.

“There’s been discussions,” he said. “… We have discussed what is going to take place. We‘re going to hire a consultant who is going to study the three counties and then we’re going to let the board, the decision makers, decide. Instead of having three Oneida County board members [those who sit on the HSC board] that get a say under the current structure, 21 board members are going to have a say.”

When there are disagreements, Hartman said, or when there is unhappiness with the level of service, 21 board members will get a say if an agreement isn’t reached.

“We’ve met with our counterparts in Vilas and Forest,” he said. “We‘ve met with the county board chairpeople. We’ve met with the corporation counsels, social services directors, the sheriffs, members of the three tribes — the Potawatomi, the Mole Lake, and the Lac de Flambeau. They’re in support of us. The county board chairs are in support of this resolution. In fact, they’re going to be considering their own resolutions going forward.”

No cut in services

For her part, Rideout assured everyone that there would be no elimination or reduction of services, just a different structure and a better way of delivering them.

“We’re not getting rid of AODA [Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse] services,” Rideout said. “We’re not eliminating mental health services. We’re not eliminating the community options, children’s community option programs, the CLTS [children’s long-term support] programs, any of those programs provided by the Human Service Center. What we are talking about is providing them differently under a different structure. So hopefully that helps folks realize that we’re not saying that any of those programs go away.”

Rideout said the services can be delivered better with a different structure. 

“That structure may include the Human Service Center,” she said.

 “That is something I think we need to look at and talk about, but whatever that structure is in the end, the services will be provided in Oneida County because we’re statutorily required to provide them. That is our responsibility.”

Rideout cited two studies that looked at concerns about the HSC, many of them the same concerns that Rideout said still exist. Rideout said one study went back as far as 2009, and many recommendations were made, but ultimately the problems weren’t fixed.

“Those are pretty consistent concerns that we’ve had over the years,” she said. “They get better, we work on them and then we kind of slide back. And sometimes those things, we get back to those having those same issues.”

Rideout said there is a lot of misunderstanding about the present system.

“We have many people that think that the Human Service Center is a private organization, that they really have nothing to do with county government,” she said. “And that’s really far from the truth. The Human Service Center is a quasi-government organization created by the three counties as a direction of the three counties. And that is just always difficult, for people to understand that structure. The current structure, and I’ve seen this probably more in the last year than I’ve seen in a long time, really creates an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ kind of culture.”

Rideout said she attended some HSC meetings because she wanted to learn more about how things were working. 

“And after one meeting, I actually talked to my then chair of the social services committee because I was just very concerned,” she said. “I thought that concerns that were being brought forth by the sheriff’s department were basically being ignored. And I left that meeting feeling like this is not a body I can bring my concerns to. And that was very disturbing for me.”

Rideout said she did believe that the Human Service Center board supports their system and supports the work that their employees do.

“And they do very difficult, important work,” she said. “But I think there’s an inability to accept that there may be some issues and problems. That was very clear to me and it just made me feel like this structure of how we have this set up in our counties just isn’t working and we really need to change the structure.”

Rideout also clarified a point about the HSC budget, especially an earlier remark that only 8 percent of the HSC budget comes from Oneida County. Actually, Rideout said, a majority of the HSC budget comes from Oneida County.

“I think there was mention of the small percentage that Oneida County contributes to the Human Service Center,” she said. “That’s county tax levy. But the Human Service Center also receives all of the state and federal dollars that … comes to Oneida County. They just come to Oneida County to the Human Service Center. Those are Oneida County dollars that are being spent for our citizens. So just keep that in mind when you hear that small percentage. We’re probably 54 or 56 percent of the funding for the Human Service Center.”

In the end, Rideout said, the Oneida County social services department supported the withdrawal resolution because, among other reasons, “attempts to address concerns or deficient service delivery have been made for decades with only temporary solutions.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.