Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call to order for this meeting June 4th. The first item on the agenda is agenda approval. What's the will of the board? Motion we approve agenda. Second. We have a motion to second any discussion. Hearing none, I call the question. All in favor raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. Okay, we're good. Thank you. Commissioners, we have two items on our agenda tonight, the budget adoption and the opioid settlement funds. The first item is 4519, is the budget adoption. And before we begin, I would like to ask for a vote to excuse Commissioner.

Mr. Chairman, I think by point of order, I think I would propose a strong vote.

Strong vote for it?

Yes, sir. You just told me the difference.

I'd like to call a straw vote right now for the Office of the Sheriff's portion of the budget.

I'll make a motion to be excused for the Sheriff's budget due to being an employee of the Sheriff. Does that need to be in the form of a motion? Yes. Yes, sir.

We have a motion. Second. We have a motion to second any discussion. If you're going to call a question, all in favor raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. Sir, if you don't mind stepping into the next room. We did the straw vote, vote to excuse. Now we do the vote to say. Yes, sir. Okay.

Do we need to be in motion?

We need a motion to approve the budget for the Office of the Sheriff.

Make a motion to approve the Sheriff's budget.

Second. We got a motion to second. Any discussion? If you're going to call the question, all in favor raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. Thank you very much.

Okay.

Please ask Commissioner Haynes to return. Welcome back. Commissioner Morris is the budget adoption. What's the will of the board? Motion. Motion we approve the budget. Second. Got a motion, second. Any discussion?

The only thing this year is we just added that line 29 for the funds from the radios and things like that that we're going to place in there, that $24 million. The capital. Yeah, capital improvement. Yes, this is it. Capital improvements in thing line 29 or something like that.

Fund 29 is the school system. Okay, sorry about that. This is, yeah, it's in the budget ordinance, but yeah.

I'm section 29. I apologize. Yeah, I thought it was 29, but I was going to look at it up real quick. So that was the only new thing? Yes.

And just making it clear that our goal of maintaining the 25% fund balance to make

Emergencies like Colleen that we just came through and maintaining that number and there's no risk it going below that that you see this year Yeah, I appreciate that thank you Any further discussion?

Thank you, sir I'll call for a vote on favor. Raise your right hand. It goes likewise. It carries. Thank you. Commissioners next time is 4517. The openly settlement funds project proposals.

Mr chairman, I'd like to make a motion. Yes, sir. I moved to revive, uh. the consideration of the Opioid Settlement Fund's project proposals, consideration of which was deferred by vote of the Board of Commissioners under ID 264501 on June 1, 2026, less than 100 days ago. Thank you, sir.

Second. I have a motion to second the discussion. Hearing none, I call the question. All in favor raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. All right, commissioners. Actually, I don't have my computer with me because I came straight from the mill. But I do have the paper with me. So this was presented to us at our last meeting. We have the summary of what was presented. Scott was going to be here Monday night to make a presentation to discuss some information. I did reach out to him, and we have like a – Four and a half, five minute video from him, provide some information. I thought we'd just do that first before we go into discussion regarding the matter before us.

Sounds good.

And if you have it, it's.

Greetings, Chairman King and Commissioners. My name is Scott Lutkenow. I'm the founder of Gatespring, and I've been the county's contract opioid settlement coordinator since July of 2020. I've prepared this brief recording to walk you through the process behind the 2026 to 2029 opioid settlement funding recommendations now before you. In the next few minutes, I'll round you in how the slate was built and summarize the seven different awards that are on the slate. First, we'll start with how we got here. Under the MOA, the county side with the state, every North Carolina county chooses between two separate paths for spending these dollars. The simpler and more limited path, funds and focus, high impact strategy menu, whereas the fuller path is to satisfy a list of deliverables. The MOA terms the collaborative strategic planning process. It requires the county to convene stakeholders across the system, document community needs, interview community members, and produce a planning report the state must formally accept. Rutherford chose the CSE path under former County Manager Steve Garrison with the support of the Rutherford County Strategic Opioid Planning Committee. We're among the smaller group of counties, about a quarter of all North Carolina counties that completed this process and that will be implementing this action phase of going from planning into implementation. The state accepted our CSP report on July 24th of 2025, and that report is the community's direct voice on what Rutherford needs to address opioid-related harms in the community. It sets the priorities, the current request for application slate, and those came from the exact needs that the community expressed as well as different needs assessments and reports that we looked at throughout that process. So the slate is grounded in what the community said it needed and what the state has agreed reflects the county's responsibilities under the current MOA. From there, the work moved into a scoring committee. So, from January to May, a seven-member cross-sector scoring committee did the work that built this current slate. The committee was recruited per the stakeholder breadth requirements of the MOA Exhibit C, which means that it drew from cross-sector representation across the different systems that touched this work in Rutherford County. The request for applications was opened publicly on January 30th. It was distributed to over 70 stakeholders in the community from across behavioral health, physical health, criminal justice, education, faith, and recovery platforms. We've been building this list for several years for folks who have attended our public forums, as well as folks who are on our committee and those who we know do this work. Three public information sessions were held over the spring in person and recordings of the first two were published online along with an application guide walking potential applicants through the process. They were also offered technical assistance at no cost. Applications closed at the end of April after we held those three public information sessions. Conflict of interest screening was handled before any scoring began. Every reviewer signed a written conflict of interest disclosure before applications were assigned. All committee members, we have about 40 committee members on our strategic planning committee, went through that process. Reviewers with a relationship to an applicant through board service, employment, funding, or family were routed off of those applications. Each reviewer scored a reassigned application independently against the same published 100-point rubric. We had three different independent scores for each application. The committee then reconciled at a consensus meeting on May 13th, and then we finalized the recommendations shown before you. Every score that entered the consensus came from a reviewer with no conflict on that specific application's recusals, reviewer assignments. Everything is documented in the meeting minutes and retained five years per the MOA, and those files are available per request to the county. Gatesbreak facilitated the process and produced the audit trail. The committee scored every application, made recommendations, and the slate is theirs. Ten applications came through the open request for application, seven were recommended for funding, and three were set aside this cycle. Each set aside happened for a specific reason on the record with no cost technical assistance offered by Gatespring to those who are chosen in the current round to provide feedback on how to better meet the needs of the strategy and the goals the committee and the county have been working towards. Rutherford Housing Partnership, despite having a desperate need in the county for separate living facilities, transitional living facilities, the committee needed a model that reached more families per dollar. It didn't reach the amount of people that it needed to. The United Way's separate A3 application, they had two different applications. This specific application was geared towards recovery-oriented. supports and the ask exceeded the strategy cap and the United Way is fully recommended through their harm reduction award that you'll see in a few moments. The Sheriff's Office put in a separate application for a monitoring device in the detention center. It's called Cell Guardian. The committee determined the underlying clinical need may be addressed through the in-custody treatment model where the sheriff's office is named alongside preferred choice on the largest award that's being proposed on the slate. So they thought that it would be prudent to come back after the three years where the sheriff's office has, alongside their partners, integrated treatment for substance use disorders to see if this is still a need. And here are the seven that are being proposed by the committee, and we'll talk about who they serve. The seven recommended awards total just over $2 million across three years within the published cycle envelope. Each is anchored to an MOA-authorized strategy and to a documented need in the Rutherford Collaborative Strategic Planning Report. For Rutherford residents whose access to opioid treatment is limited by cost or geography, McLeod Centers for Wellbeing, in partnership with Blue Ridge FQHC, will be providing evidence-based treatment not currently available in the county. Counseling, peer support, psychiatric services, care coordination, out of a co-located property at Blue Ridge's Spindale location. This is the type of treatment access that Everything else on the slate really depends on. McLeod is partnering with Blue Ridge to co-locate this expansion through their own investment. The closest commensurate treatment is available in Marion. Citizens regularly travel out of the county for treatment. McLeod has a stellar reputation as a nonprofit in North Carolina for over 50 years. For people in recovery who need ongoing connection and a way to get care, the committee directed the recovery strategy cap, which was $300,000, with conditions to two complementary providers reaching different parts of the county. McLeod will embed peer recovery specialists alongside treatment, and UNI in Richmond will expand its recovery community organization as a walk-in recovery hub hitting underserved areas in the county. Peer support and transportation are what keep people engaged after treatment starts, and these were common issues that came up in our reporting process. For young people and the adults in their lives, caregivers, school staff, foster and kinship families, Mosaic Hope receives the only prevention award on the slate with conditions. Their trust-based relational intervention model builds trust with young people before substance use enters the picture. This is the most upstream investment on the slate. We were impressed with their partnership with the school system locally, and we see this as a big underserved area is making sure that folks don't become addicted to substances in the first place. We feel like this is a strong model to implement in the county. For the moment between an overdose and the first treatment conversation, McLeod is also funded with conditions for community naloxone distribution. The smallest line that we have on the current slate of proposed funded programs but the largest possible impact. Keeping people alive long enough to choose treatment. Other agencies doing a lot to saturate the community with naloxone, but with the treatment that McLeod is going to be offering alongside transportation and peer support. is a really strong way to make sure that people are staying engaged in treatment. If they are going to use substances, which is up to folks and their own motivation, we need to keep them as safe as possible. It lowers the public health costs to have this in our communities. For people not ready or able to enter into treatment, the United Way of Rutherford County is a recommendation of a strategy cap for the Rutherford Mobile Harm Reduction Team. What this team does is they meet people across homeless encampments, on the trail, in different areas of the community that are forgotten about. This team meets these folks where they are. With overdose prevention supplies, wound care, and warm referrals to treatment, as soon as they become ready, oftentimes motivation and trust starts with helping somebody to connect to different resources that are more immediate for them, taking care of a deadly wound, getting access to food or shelter or other supplies, making sure they have access to sterile needles, which has not been shown to increase drug use, but has been shown to decrease the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and other communicable diseases that can be avoided. And so this is really reaching people the treatment system just has not reached and brings them in where they are. These are very well researched programs that do a lot of good for people that are often under the radar. And for our population at greatest overdose risk in the county, in the United States, are those in the detention facility. The largest single award with conditions goes to Preferred Choice Healthcare, who has a co-equal operational partnership in this application with the Sheriff's Department. Preferred Choice leaves the team with the sheriff to screen for opioid use disorder. As soon as somebody comes into custody, begin medical and behavioral health treatment immediately and continue care through their release. The single highest leverage moment in the county system where one award reaches the population at the greatest risk. So these are seven different awards, six different strategies. They've all been well vetted and anchored to the memorandum of agreement that we have with the state. And to what the community has said in its own words, it's what it needed. And a note on transparency and how the board can stay close to this work going forward. The strategic planning committee meets around quarterly throughout the funding cycle and beyond. The county also holds the annual public forum meetings each year as required under the agreement that we have with the state. Both are great opportunities for any commissioner who wants to see this work up close. You can watch the committee work, you can hear awardees report in on their progress and outcomes, and you can ask real questions in real time to the people doing the work. and two final things one is for the people who may be watching this at home if this is showed in a public setting and then one is for the board to anyone that's watching this from home that's in the middle of a struggle with a substance use disorder who loves somebody who does i just want to say that this work is for you you have a lot of people in this county who really want to see access and the treatment of individuals with substance use disorder change in Rutherford County so we can break these intergenerational cycles of addiction and poverty. Commissioners, on behalf of the scoring committee, I respectfully ask the board for your ratification of the slate. The companion documents, the commissioner's brief, the compliance crosswalk, the application one sheets, and the public outreach documentation are all in file with the county and available on request. I thank you very much, and we appreciate your service.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate that. Commissioner Deller, at the last meeting, actually, we had the slate presented before us. There are numerous items on there. Our discussion is to approve all of them, some of them, most of them. And at this time, I'm hoping this is up for discussion or for a motion.

So we're approving six of the slate according to the resolution that is written here.

If I understand the resolution correctly, the resolution is approving the recommendations except for number nine, which is the United Way.

I'll make a motion we approve the resolution.

Second. We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion?

I'd just like to state that I know this is going to be a public meeting. The video will probably be seen and recorded. So this is six of the seven, and I'm speaking for me personally. I'm all for supporting people with substance abuse struggles, but I don't believe that we should be encouraging them, which is kind of what I read from the one that we've removed. Supplying things like that is not, I feel like we're just enabling. If you're giving a kid chocolate, he's gonna want chocolate and he's gonna wanna continue to eat the chocolate. So that's how I feel on that issue. I know this is gonna probably ruffle some feathers by what we're doing, but I think it's the right thing. So just wanted to make that known. Thank you, Commissioners.

Any further discussion? Thank you, Hunter. Appreciate that.

Yes, sir.

If there's discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor, raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. Carries. Thank you. Commissioners, next item is a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the question. All in favor, raise your right hand. Any opposed, likewise. We are adjourned.

Thank you.