Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Social Services topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County hears funding, service updates from SMA Healthcare, Meridian and Episcopal Children's Services
Summary
SMA Healthcare, Meridian and Episcopal Children's Services briefed commissioners on local behavioral-health, substance-use and early-childhood services; providers described service counts, grant activity and requested modest local funding increases while commissioners said no funding decisions would be made until budget review.
Representatives from three local service providers presented annual reports and answered commissioners' questions about program volume, grants and funding needs.
Salvatore "Tory" Gentoli of SMA Healthcare (speaker 11) said Putnam County provides SMA property in kind and operating support—"the 2 buildings over at 330 K Larkin Drive, for a total of $390,000 per fiscal year"—and summarized services that the county dollars support, including drug court, therapy and psychiatric services. Gentoli reported SMA served 2,046 Putnam residents in-county and 142 out-of-county residents for a total of 2,188 Putnam citizens served in the past fiscal year, and cautioned that some primary-care services rely on an imminent grant award due in mid-August.
Lauren Cohen, president and CEO of Meridian (speaker 14), presented Meridian's annual figures, reporting that 454 Putnam County residents received a total of 3,456 telehealth services in the fiscal year ending 06/30/2026, and that Meridian is requesting a 2% local funding increase, bringing the request to $56,100, to support expanded services and required local match for state and federal funding. Cohen said telehealth growth reflects greater awareness and improved connectivity rather than solely local in-person expansion.
Britney Spangler of Episcopal Children's Services (speaker 16) reviewed childcare and school-readiness metrics: an average of 764 Putnam children served in the school-readiness program, 446 children in VPK across 23 contracted programs, and a request to continue a $5,000 county allocation for FY26-27 to leverage federal match. Commissioners praised the programs' return on investment and asked staff to provide more granular ZIP-code-level demographics for Putnam in future reports.
The chair emphasized that no budget decisions were being made at the presentation stage; commissioners directed staff to include these requests in the upcoming budget workshop and to follow up with additional demographic detail requested by the board.
