McLean County hires Heartland College to rewrite mental-health action plan; FUSE program budget grows

The McLean County Executive Committee on Feb. 10 approved a contract with Heartland Community College to revise the county—s mental health action plan and approved a clinical education agreement with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for social-work placements.

The decisions came as the committee received a year-end report showing the county—s FUSE (Frequent Users Systems Engagement) program served 37 individuals in 2024 and that the Behavioral Health Coordinating Council (BHCC) is reallocating budgeted funds to expand community projects in 2025.

"We chose Heartland, based on our previous work with them," said Miss Landreth, Behavioral Health Coordinator (staff), explaining the county selected Heartland Community College from multiple proposals because of prior collaboration and familiarity with county strategic priorities. The committee approved the Heartland contract by motion (Member Bregel moved; Member Layman seconded). The motion passed unanimously.

Landreth told the committee she expects the bulk of the rewrite work to be completed in spring, with a final product by summer to inform 2026 planning and community communications. "The majority of the work, we would want this to mostly be done in the spring with the very latest for this to be done by the summer," she said.

The committee also approved a clinical education agreement with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign after Landreth said one of the county—s FEWS program case managers is pursuing a master's degree there and the program offers a "leadership in social change" emphasis the department hopes to use. That motion was moved by Member Beirne and seconded by Member Layman and passed unanimously.

In an informational report, Landreth summarized 2024 Behavioral Health Coordination activity and spending projections for 2025. The report says the FUSE program served 37 individuals in 2024, of whom 21 were case openings: 17 were new clients and four were returning clients. Since 2019 the county has served 54 people through FUSE, and the report records 406 interactions with justice, emergency department and shelter systems for that group. The report also states, in its wording, that "the total for all of those folks while they've been in the FUSE program is a 13," a phrasing presented to the committee.

Landreth reported a funding reallocation after a contract with the Center for Human Services to support a Behavioral Health Urgent Care site secured independent funding and therefore did not seek BHCC funds for 2025. That change increased the community projects budget line from an originally planned $1,500,000 to $2,250,000. Landreth said the county expects to direct a larger portion of the funds toward a non-congregate shelter project in 2025 and anticipates providing about $1,500,000 to that shelter project this year (the prior plan had estimated roughly $1,000,000 toward the shelter).

Landreth said the BHCC has been reorganized to emphasize practical application of tax dollars and that an "emergent funds" category will be available for midyear projects that arise outside the regular budget cycle. She described the reallocation as a step toward deploying funds for community projects and noted positive outcomes reported for clients served by county-funded programs.

The committee asked no follow-up questions and approved the related action items unanimously. Landreth closed by offering to answer questions about the report.

The committee recorded the Heartland contract and the University of Illinois clinical agreement as formal actions; the FUSE statistics and the budget reallocation were presented as informational material in the BHCC report.