McLean County Board Chair Elizabeth Johnston said there's significant movement on mental health program spending in the county. That comes from sales tax money shared with the county by Bloomington and Normal for behavioral health.
Johnston said there's approval for a $100,000 housing support grant to the Center for Human Services to prevent evictions for 46 families and $190,000 for the Boys and Girls Club for youth programming.
The Behavioral Health Coordinating Council, which deals with mental health efforts, also has a new website for the public to engage with.
Johnston said the county continues to ramp up training programs for mental health professionals in the community. More than 100 people recently learned how to do what's called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy [DBT] for people who have extreme difficulties in day-to-day living.
“There's core mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. The population you focus on are people who have borderline personality traits. It has been successful for people with addictions, for people who just have chronic difficulty in their day-to-day life in staying stable," said Johnston.
Training on another new tool to help people stop self-destructive behaviors is called Motivational Interviewing, a heightened state of listening.
"Trying to dig deeper into what is triggering that behavior or thought process, what is actually motivating them into that. A lot of times it is something they don't even realize," said Johnston.
Grants from the county mental health and safety fund paid for the training.
Earlier in the fall, the county trained social workers and counselors on a therapy mode to ease emotional trauma symptoms.
Solar installation wrinkles
McLean County government has approved a new solar project and added depth to existing regulation. Johnston said the county is still on a learning curve for solar energy projects. The latest project in southwest Bloomington from the SunVest company includes battery energy storage, or BES.
“With BES systems, there is different technology, different construction. All the different materials that can be used can indicate very different fire safety plans," said Johnston.
The county board added requirements based on Bloomington Fire Department recommendations before approving the 134-acre project.
Johnston said she hopes those will be a standard part of the Zoning Board of Appeals process going forward.
Johnston said she believes the county will continue to see more solar projects in spite of a federal pullback on incentives for renewable energy. She recalled a previous project in which a farm owner talked about taking land out of crop production to put in solar because the owner wanted to diversify income streams.
"She talked about how she was kind of cutting out the middleman for energy production because that land had previously been used to grow corn and soy that had to be trucked and processed and then converted to energy," said Johnston.
Johnston said low crop prices could stimulate farm owner interest in solar. The county wants to preserve farmland yet also protect owner property rights, she said.
Shared sales tax dispute
The City of Bloomington and Town of Normal recently responded to a county olive branch in the fight over whether shared sales tax money is being used properly for behavioral health programming or whether county choices to pay certain jail workers with that money and use those funds on some information systems is in line with a decade-old intergovernmental agreement.
The county had suggested negotiations over changes to the agreement resume and offered to accept a pause in collection of the revenue if the agreement could be extended by a time equivalent to the pause. The town and city responded shortly before Thanksgiving with a letter suggesting the negotiations be in the framework of collective bargaining.
“I'm very grateful for the kind of recognition that taking the step back and re-engaging in negotiations is in the best interest of the community and in the best interest of this discussion,” said Johnston.
The city, town, and county are still meeting about the scope of a previously agreed audit. Johnston said the municipalities have not formally discussed next steps in the shape of negotiations on issues outside the scope of the audit.
“What I would like to see is for us to be sitting down and hammering out, what are those details and kind of demonstrating to the community that, like many of our other intergovernmental agreements, we do work together very closely for the for the benefit of everyone,” said Johnston.
Strategic plan
Work on a new strategic plan for McLean County government is about half done, said Johnston.
“I've really enjoyed working with our consultant. He has taken time to really do his homework. He interviewed board members and elected officials. He's interviewed appointed officials. He's held employee work groups to get feedback on what the county is doing well and where the county needs some work. We've had stakeholder community meetings,” said Johnston.
There is a draft plan on the county’s mission, vision, and values ready for public review. She anticipated spending January to draft goals and objectives and finalizing the full draft plan. Public feedback would come after that, and Johnston said she hopes to finish the process by March to staff can use it for the remainder of the year and into the 2027 budget cycle.
Johnston said the plan will require quarterly progress updates to help assure the document remains alive over the next three years.
