Tiny Service Provider Sues McHenry County Mental Board

More woe piled on the McHenry County Mental Health Board Tuesday as President Lee Ellis admitted an MHB provider had filed suit Friday against the Board charging it was trying to destroy the agency asking for the return of as much as $1.1 million in service payments.  "What they're saying is none of our clients was qualified," summed up Pat Owens, head of teen alcohol and drug abuse treatment center The Advantage Group.

Ellis said he couldn't talk about the case and referred FEN to Board Attorney Frank Gosser.  "He's our spokesman on this issue," he said.  But Gosser, too, declined comment, citing lawyer rules against public comments that might interfere with legal proceedings.  Besides, he said, "We just got it."

Crytal Lake-based TAG, one of the Mental Health Board's smaller service providers, charged MHB began auditing its cases earlier this Spring, making up rules on the fly, then flunking TAG for not following them for the past three years.  "We just had a State audit Friday," said Owens. "We passed with flying colors."

The lawsuit caps six months of Mental Health Board problems including the implosion of major provider Family Service, the collapse of an MHB-brokered rescue plan, the sudden resignation of the Board's three top execs and Monday's newly-revealed resignation of a Board member citing conflicts of interest.

TAG's complaint doesn't say why the $14 million per year Mental Health Board would suddenly use a "warchest" to exterminate a six-person treatment agency.  Owens said that's because she doesn't know.  "I wish I did," she said.