St. Anthony funding is reallocated

6/20/2001

State money previously allocated to St. Anthony Villa for adolescent substance abuse treatment will go to Connecting Point based on a decision by the Lucas County Alcohol and Drug Addiction Service Board yesterday.

But Connecting Point and the other 11 agencies the addiction board has chosen to fund must wait to see how much money they'll have for fiscal year 2002, which begins July 1.

Because of delays in finalizing the state budget, the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services hasn't announced how much money it will allocate to local agencies.

“We don't know for sure where it all stands,” said Stacey Frohnapfel, state agency spokeswoman. “We're definitely looking to minimize this as much as possible for the field.”

Last year, St. Anthony Villa received about $327,00 in state agency money, which was administered throughcounty addiction services. But the Villa announced last month it would not provide behavioral treatment or substance abuse treatment for teens and adolescents after Aug. 1. Connecting Point administrators said they are organizing to provide the services.

Some county addiction board members said they voted to transfer the money entirely to Connecting Point to minimize the disruption of services to the teens and adolescents in programs there.

“Our main concern is that there's no interruption of treatment for adolescents,” said Louise Barkan, allocations committee chairwoman.

But also in their decision yesterday, the ADAS board members decided to open a bidding process next year for funding for adolescent treatment.

Some administrators at other substance abuse treatment centers in Lucas County have said they would be interested in expanding or adding adolescent services - and receiving county addiction services' money.

“I'd like to be part of the process when decisions are made by the system,” said Bill Sanford, chief executive officer of Compass Corporation for Recovery Services, which operates Compass, a residential substance abuse center for adults that is developing plans for an adolescent program.

“I agree with what they did with the process of working with Connecting Point. They've got to make sure there's not a disruption in services. ... But [the decision] was made and we didn't really have any input into it,” he said.