Commissioners press David Lawrence Center on operating agreement, bed counts and funding for proposed central receiving facility

Collier County commissioners used a workshop meeting to press for clearer terms and financial details in a proposed operating agreement with the David Lawrence Center for a planned central receiving facility intended to receive people in behavioral‑health crisis.

Scott Burgess, a coalition leader, told the commissioners the central receiving facility will create 87 new beds and that 33 crisis stabilization beds will remain at the David Lawrence Center’s current campus. He also said the project will require about 92 new direct staff positions. “We are having, we're going to have 87 new beds in the central receiving facility,” Burgess said.

Commissioners responded with a mix of support for the facility’s goals and sharp questions about operational risk and the county’s potential long‑term obligations. “A B plus decision now is better than an A plus decision that never comes,” Commissioner Carmine Locastro said, urging the board to move forward. Locastro said he strongly favors placing the facility on the David Lawrence Center property.

Other commissioners raised concerns. Commissioner Michael McDaniel said he was disappointed portions of the operating agreement remained unresolved and flagged the pro forma showing an annual operating shortfall in the neighborhood of $900,000. “I cannot believe that I'm sitting here today with these discussions that we've been having for all these years, and that operating agreement that was put before us last week is not fixed,” McDaniel said.

Commissioner Matt Hall pressed the David Lawrence Center’s representatives on whether the 87 beds were truly net new or whether some existing adult‑care capacity would be consolidated into the new facility. Scott Burgess and other presenters said the new 87 beds would be added and that certain adult services will be consolidated into a dedicated adult building while 33 crisis beds on the current campus will be refocused for children, which should increase juvenile capacity.

County staff, the clerk’s office and the county attorney flagged other financial and procedural concerns. Clerk Crystal Sontay told commissioners the pro forma showed a roughly $900,000 annual deficit and warned the board that naming‑rights and philanthropic pledges referenced by the operator were not yet guaranteed. County attorney Sally Ashkar described the mechanism in the draft operating agreement by which the David Lawrence Center could request deficit funding: the agreement ties requests for county funds to reductions in federal, state or county funding for the facility. “If the sources of revenue for the central receiving facility from the feds, the state, or the county are reduced, then David Lawrence Center can submit a request to the county for deficit funding,” Ashkar said, adding that the county may approve the request, approve a reduced level of service, or terminate the agreement.

Commissioner Hall said he would not be comfortable entering an agreement that “is planning to fail,” referring to the pro forma shortfall and the uncertainty that philanthropic dollars will cover recurring operating expenses.

No formal vote was taken at the workshop. Staff and the David Lawrence Center representatives said the operating agreement circulated last week had not been changed since those meetings and that outstanding questions should be submitted to county staff so they can be addressed before the board’s upcoming meeting, when commissioners said they expect to vote on approval of terms.

What’s next: The board scheduled the matter for action at its next regular meeting and asked county staff and the David Lawrence Center to provide clarifying documents, including a reconciled bed count, staffing assumptions and a clarified pro forma showing the sources and uses of revenue and the planned use of any naming‑rights or donation proceeds.