Two mental health therapists will be hired by the county to assess inmate-treatment needs for the new Central Intake and Assessment Center as part of the massive jail construction project.
The county Board of Commissioners last week approved the addition of two therapists in Community Mental Health at a combined cost of $295,000. Opioid settlement funds will be used to pay the salaries.
The therapists will break down the number of new inmates who require mental health and/or substance abuse services and what type of treatment “so we can have a better developed plan once we are opening the doors and have that fully implemented in terms of assessment and screening when they (inmates) are first booked into the building,” county Community Corrections Director Barbara Caskey told a board committee a week earlier.
The therapists will “start the screening process and start taking a look at what kind numbers we’re really looking at when it comes to programming, diagnosis” for the CIAC, she told the board.
Though analysis has been done in the past, Caskey said she wants the latest and most accurate information possible.
Barbara Caskey, director of Macomb County Community Corrections
MACOMB DAILY FILE PHOTO
“I don’t think we want to just rely on that,” she said. “That’s why we decided to get people there asking those questions and asking them in the right space. We’re doing it for the right purpose at the right time, hopefully getting good data to be able to rely on for what we need to bring into the facility.”
CMH CEO Traci Smith was fully supportive of the proposal.
“It’ll provide better care for individuals as they come in and go out,” Smith said. “We already have (services) but there are additional needs we’re not fulfilling. This will allow us to do it now and moving forward into the new building.”
The $228-million jail project, which is expected to be completed in late 2027, is designed to not only modernize the facility but add space to provide more and better mental-health and substance-abuse treatment to inmates.
The highlight of the project is the four-level, 177,000-square-foot CIAC that will house up to 303 inmates, with expansion potential, at Dunham and Elizabeth roads, west of Groesbeck Highway in Mount Clemens. The project includes renovation of 28,000-square-feet of the existing nine story jail tower that will still house a large majority of the inmates; the jail’s capacity will increase from 1,034 to 1,218. Also included is the demolition of 78,000-square-feet of decaying structures.
Caskey said there currently are 23 Community Corrections and CMH staffers at the jail. The capacity will increase to 35, with the potential for even more additional positions in other areas of the facility, she added.
The number of therapists working for Macomb MCH will increase from 81 to 83, officials said.
At $329 million, Macomb CMH is the second largest budget item in the county’s $1.1 billion budget, according to the 2026 budget. The largest is the general fund at $365 million. CMH provides “a variety of mental health, intellectual and developmental disability, and substance use support services, including walk-in screenings, intake assessments, case management services, psychiatric evaluations, and medication reviews,” it says.
A large portion of its funding is Medicaid dollars.
Regarding the use of opioid dollars to pay for the two new therapists, the county is in its fourth year (covering five years) of receiving annual installments of a total of $53 million over 18 years from the massive, nationwide settlements of lawsuits against opioids manufacturers and distributors.
The two new CMH therapists will continue to be paid with the funds over the coming years, Caskey said.