Dundee Township compromise deal will free up $800,000 in mental health grant money

Dundee Township officials have reached a compromise to resolve an eight-month impasse on the 708 Mental Health Board that prevented $800,000 in grant money from being released to mental health providers.

Under the terms, Trustee Sue Harney has agreed to resign as the Mental Health Board president and Dundee Township Board liaison effective May 2027. She will be succeeded by Trustee Henry Fixemer.

In exchange, township Supervisor Shefali Shah will withdraw the name of a candidate she wanted to name to the Mental Health Board, the appointment of whom became one of the reasons for the impasse between the two groups.

Shah has nominated three new candidates, all of whom were approved by Dundee Township Board trustees at their board meeting Wednesday night.

“Over the past several months, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion concerning the vacancies and the future composition of the Mental Health Board. We have reached an agreement that will allow us to move forward,” Shah said at the meeting.

The three candidates are Ken Schaffer, Tara McShane and Amber Cotter. Schaffer and McShane, who previously served on the Hanover Township 708 Mental Health Board, were appointed to four-year terms. Cotter is filling a vacancy created by a resignation and will serve until December.

Nominations for candidates are made by the township supervisor but must be approved by the township board. Shah nominated three candidates that were rejected by the township board.

One was a former Mental Health Board member whose term expired in December. His appointment was a main cause of the impasse, with those who opposed him citing the fact that he did not regularly attend meetings and did not support the board’s mission.

Since January, every Mental Health Board meeting has been canceled due to a lack of a quorum caused by the member’s consistent failure to attend.

As a result, no business has been done by the board in eight months. About $800,000 in tax money earmarked for township mental health services has not been disbursed.

Harney described the township as a mental health services “desert” due to the lack of funding.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Harney said if the appointments were approved, the Mental Health Board would meet this week and officially hire an administrator. With the new board seated, it will be able to complete the 16 grant applications in the pipeline.

Shah, however, said the new board members should be given some time to catch up and learn about the grant applications before being asked to approve them.

“I will bring it up, but I will push back on (any effort to delay approval),” Harney said. “We are eight months into the grant year, which means the 16 grants that we had teed up and ready to roll last January have not been able to be finalized. We need to do that.”

Those grants were thoroughly reviewed and vetted by the previous board, Harney said.

The grants “were essentially promised last January. I feel strongly we should try and get this rolling because we are so behind in the process,” she said. “We desperately need to get this show on the road.”

Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.