Plans for the Collier County Behavioral Health Center continue to move forward after the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a project update and 87-bed design during its March 12 meeting.
The 60% design plan for the 60,000-square-foot project, under the leadership of David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health, was presented to county staff in December with a cost estimate of $53.1 million. After receiving the design plan, the county worked with engineers to reduce the estimate to $49.9 million.
When the board provided direction to proceed with the design of the building in June, the projected cost was $43.9 million. Funding is coming from the 1 cent sales surtax, which accumulated more than $490 million. The surcharge sunsetted at the end of 2023.
With increasing construction costs, along with anticipated ongoing operations and maintenance that is expected to cost about $3.5 million per year, some commissioners expressed concern about how much this facility will cost the county annually.
“I’m having trouble authorizing the construction of this facility without certain timelines, without certain measurables and milestones in place to cover these known deficits,” Commissioner William McDaniel said.
David Lawrence Centers CEO Scott Burgess said partnership with the county is crucial for this facility to be a success, as about 70% of those who use the center’s services now are underinsured, with 20% having no income.
“From a business model standpoint, it’s very hard to be able to break even on operations when you have that level of funding challenge,” Burgess said.
Burgess said 10% of David Lawrence Centers’ budget is supported through county government, with the rest supported through state, federal or donor funding.
Besides the 87 patient beds, the facility will have 45 adult crisis stabilization units and an emergency services assessment center. Commissioner Burt Saunders said this addition to the community could help save the county money spent on mental health treatment inside of its jails. Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk agreed and said it costs about $160 to $180 per day to keep someone in jail, and this facility will ultimately decrease the likelihood of someone returning to the system.
“Any of those individuals in crisis that we can refer to the David Lawrence Center rather than house in our jail facility will save us those operating dollars. But there are other dollars [that can be saved] as well because there’s an impact on deputies and their individual responses or impacts to our behavioral health unit who stay in contact with all of these individuals,” Rambosk said. “If they are being assisted by the David Lawrence Center, none of our staff is impacted in that way and we can defer those resources to other individuals that need them.”
In the past year, the county’s behavioral health unit has worked with more than 2,000 individuals in the community. Saunders said it would be helpful for an analysis to be done as to what this facility’s impact will be on other county operations other than the behavioral unit such as law enforcement.
“I think we’re going to need that analysis to be able to justify going forward,” Saunders said. “I know that those numbers are going to be positive for us in going forward, but that’ll help convince the public that this is really the right project.”
John McCormick, the county’s director of facility management, said that he wants the project to go through the growth management plan process by the end of the year. The final design also will come back to the commission for approval.
“The design development is done, but we’ve got some work to do,” McCormick said. “It’s a pretty aggressive schedule, but time is money especially in this business, and we’re anxious to turn some dirt.”
