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10 appointed to new mental health and recovery board
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners have appointed 10 people to serve on the new Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board beginning with the board’s first meeting later this month.
On Thursday, they appointed Patricia Sciaretta, Bishop C.M. Jenkins and Austintown Police Chief Robert Gavalier to terms expiring June 30, 2017.
Appointed to terms ending June 30, 2018, are James Bertrando, Marilyn Burns and Suzanne Paluga.
Serving terms expiring June 30, 2019, are Michael Cretella, Rocco DiGennaro, Maurina Hanna and Edgar Manning.
The board is being created by the merger of the county mental-health and alcohol- and drug-addiction services boards.
Manning is chairman of the mental-health board; and Hanna is chairwoman of the ADAS board.
The new board will be sworn in by Judge Robert N. Rusu Jr. of Mahoning County Probate Court and is expected to elect officers and choose a director at its first meeting at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 23 in the Ohio One Building auditorium, 25 E. Boardman St.
The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services is expected to appoint eight additional members of the new board, also to staggered terms, around the middle of this month.
Four of the state’s appointees will represent mental health and the other four will represent addiction recovery services, said Eric R. Wandersleben, a department spokesman. Two will serve four-year terms and three each will serve two and three-year terms, he added.
Officials of the two boards are considering housing the combined board staff either in the Ohio One Building, where the mental-health board is now located, or on the second floor of the county Children Services Board building, said Duane Piccirilli, mental-health board executive director.
“The good thing about this is we can start our budget hearings in April because our fiscal year starts July 1,” Piccirilli said of the advantage of having the new board in place this month.
“Medicaid expansion is a game changer for both of us because now more people have a medical card, so we can use our levy dollars for prevention [of alcohol and drug abuse] and for housing and for addiction services, so we’ll be able to really serve a lot more people,” he told the commissioners.
“I am really pleased to see the boards being merged. ... You just don’t want to be in a situation where you’re having to stop services at midpoint from one board because the other board needs to pick it up. It never made any sense,” said Linette Stratford, chief of the civil division in the county prosecutor’s office, who has been working on the merger.