The county supervisors’ decision to leave the Heart of Iowa Community Services (HICS) mental health region and join the Central Iowa Community Services (CICS) region was affirmed Monday when CICS CEO Jody Eaton and financial officer Jill Eaton made a courtesy visit to the board Monday.
The supervisors notified the HICS board in October of their intention to leave the four-county region (Dallas, Guthrie, Audubon and Greene) and join the 10-county CICs region. The CICS board voted in January to accept Greene County as a member. Other counties in the central Iowa region are Boone, Franklin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jasper, Madison, Marshall, Poweshiek, Story and Warren.
The change in alignment is effective July 1.
Dawn Rudolph, who serves as the county’s representative on the HICS board expressed frustration for several months about the management of that region. She will serve on the CICS board.
Since the state formed the community services regions three years ago, a HICS representative has not attended a Greene County supervisors meeting.
Jody Eaton started by saying CICS is excited to have Greene County join and she hoped the supervisors are, too. She admitted that the decision to add Greene County was not easy for the board members. “They really felt like they had moved forward from 10 individual counties to a cohesive group. That was the biggest concern they had,” Eaton said. “Once we brought them the information that showed what you have to offer, and what we felt we could offer back, we came to an almost unanimous vote. We’re really excited and we want to move forward with that.
The two shared information about CICS’ fiscal policies and procedures and answered questions from auditor Jane Heun and the board.
In the CICS, each county has one representative on the governing board and each county has one vote. They are not weighted by population, Eaton said. CICS also has an advisory board that includes a provider and a person receiving services or a family member from each county. The mental health coalition that meets quarterly at Greene County Medical Center will appoint someone to the CICS advisory board, according to Ellen Ritter, Greene County mental health coordinator.
Board chair John Muir said after the discussion that the board already feels more comfortable with the new region than with the region it is leaving.
