A mental health subcommittee of the Brown County Human Services Committee in Wisconsin was given until April 2024 to outline specific strategies it will implement as the county's newly re-formed mental health task force, according to an Aug. 25 report from the Green Bay Press Gazette.
The Brown County board approved the subcommittee on Aug. 16, but it will need to reapply in April 2024, meaning it has only eight months to address the various mental health concerns in the county. Committee members and Brown County board members have expressed fear that the task is too large to take on in the given amount of time.
"I know, overall, what we're trying to accomplish, but we can't take everything in one bite," Patrick Hopkins, committee member and Brown County board member, said in the report.
The remodeled subcommittee was formerly known as the Brown County Mental Health Task Force. Under this name, it was successful in obtaining funding for a new Brown County crisis treatment center, which provides wraparound mental health services and focuses on preventing arrests and recidivism, according to the report.
However, the subcommittee had a history of meeting increasingly inconsistently and violating open record laws, delaying meetings until its list of members could be solidified. It met three times in 2019, one time in January 2020 and once in April 2021. The subcommittee has since been reestablished with a board primarily consisting of former Brown County board members.
"People are curious what they're going to do," Emily Jacobson, Brown County board member and chair of the Human Services Committee, said in the report. "Do they have full support of the board? Not necessarily. Are there concerns they're going to try to reinvent the wheel? Possibly. More than anything, the overarching thinking is, 'Let's see what they can do.'"