Wythe County threatens to cut funding for community services board

Wythe County is expected Friday to finalize a $118 million budget that eliminates funding for the area’s public mental health agency because supervisors lack confidence in its leadership.

On Tuesday, Chairman Brian Vaught told Sandy Bryant, CEO of Mount Rogers Community Services, to either resign by 10 a.m. Friday or risk losing the county’s financial support.

“I’m not resigning,” Bryant said immediately after Tuesday’s budget meeting adjourned.

Like every county and city in Virginia, Wythe County has a community services board that provides assistance to people with developmental disabilities, mental health needs and substance use disorders. Mount Rogers Community Services covers Bland, Carroll, Grayson, Smyth and Wythe counties and the city of Galax.

Virginia requires localites to provide financial support for community services boards. The amount is determined in part by a locality’s population; in recent years, Wythe County has contributed about $165,000 annually toward the agency’s $92 million budget, which already falls about $56,000 short of the state mandate.

Wythe County supervisors have publicly lauded the behavioral health services that Mount Rogers provides. Their problem, they’ve said, is with the agency’s leadership.

“My vote was not about services, nor about the service providers they employ. I’ve never received the first complaint about the services. It was about transparency, communication, honesty and, now, work environment for the employees,” Vaught said.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Bryant said she wants to work through the board’s complaints.

“I would like to meet with them and hear their wants and concerns and try to accommodate them,” she said. “I work very hard to be responsive to requests from individuals we serve, employees and stakeholders. …  I have already identified ways to be even more available by regularly attending board of supervisors meetings and welcome any other suggestions.”

At the board’s last regular meeting, Vaught said that he didn’t want the public to be “blindsided” by the abrupt pulling of funding to the behavioral health services organization, which is headquartered in Wytheville and employs 163 Wythe County residents among its 853 total employees.

In a phone interview last week, Vaught said he saw the cut as a “vote of no confidence in the leadership of the agency,” citing the same ongoing issues he has mentioned in public meetings: lack of transparency and communications, high salaries for administrators and complaints of poor working conditions for employees.

He said he has no problems at all with the agency’s services and, as an employee of the county sheriff’s office, said he knows firsthand the need the county has for these services.

Supervisors’ concerns about the agency have been going on since at least March 2023, when Vaught said he got complaints about staff salary disparities from friends who worked for Mount Rogers. He requested a copy of the community service board’s salary survey.

This spring, some residents questioned a supportive housing project for people with behavioral health needs that Mount Rogers was launching at an apartment building it had purchased.

Supervisor James Smith said the board had not been made aware of the real estate deal when it happened the previous October. So he asked Bryant to address the concerns at a board meeting, which she did.

Later in March, Bryant returned to a board meeting with the agency’s annual request for funding. The state had increased its funding, which meant that the required local match also would need to increase, from $220,649 in 2024 — of which the county had only paid $164,340 — to $309,152.

As budget committee chair, Smith said he wanted to know that the money is being spent in Wythe County.

“If the taxpayers are responsible for more than $300,000 in requests this year, they want to know where it’s going. They’re not feeling that there’s a lot of communication on where it’s going,” Smith said. “Is it going for executive pay raises or is it going to support the communities, or is it going to take care of the workers that work for Mount Rogers and Wythe County?”

Mount Rogers CFO Patricia Belcher gave the board a breakdown of $627,088 in local funds provided last year by the six localities: $426,188 to mental health services, $133,727 to developmental disabilities programing and $67,242 to substance use programming.

Smith asked how much was spent specifically in Wythe County. Belcher agreed to provide that.

During their budget work sessions this spring, board members sought to decrease the amount allocated to Mount Rogers from the $164,349 they had given consistently for the past four years — no matter the state’s required match — to $135,000.

The $30,000 cut, Vaught said in the phone interview, acknowledges the fact that the county does not receive tax revenue on the 18 buildings Mount Rogers Community Services owns in Wythe County.

At the June 11 supervisors meeting, however, Supervisor Stacy Terry made a motion to cut the funding altogether pending further discussion. The board agreed, added the June 25 budget committee meeting to its calendar, and approved the remainder of the budget.

Regardless of the board’s decision regarding funding, nothing will change in terms of the services Wythe County receives, said Logan Nester, director of marketing and communications for the community services board.

“We are committed to serving the citizens of Wythe County,” he said.

Terry declined to comment on abolishing the funding, although he has said in public meetings that he has been unhappy with communication with the agency and has received complaints about the work environment.

According to information obtained by Cardinal News through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request, Terry filed a FOIA request with Mount Rogers earlier this month, seeking copies of correspondence and call logs about a Pride Month event held at a local brewery.

Mount Rogers Community Services hosts events called Pride Chats in Wythe and Smyth counties, inviting LGBTQ+ residents to gather around wellness issues and create community.

Someone associated with a local brewery attended one of these sessions and suggested offering a resource fair in its parking lot during Pride Month. Mount Rogers agreed that it would host a table with brochures explaining the resources it offers, Nester said.

Nester said there was no problem until a Mount Rogers employee, who was later disciplined and resigned, shared the agency’s logo, and it was used on promotional flyers for a drag show at the brewery.

In a June 14 Facebook post, Mount Rogers Community Services reported the issue: “A former employee recently shared our logo without authorization or approval which unfortunately has generated some confusion in the community.

“Mount Rogers Community Services did not authorize or approve the use of our logo for an event at a local brewery. Any such use is strictly prohibited and unlawful. To set the record straight, Mount Rogers has not and will not in any way sponsor, endorse, or fund this event. Any statement or materials suggesting otherwise are false and should be disregarded. An event at a brewery featuring alcohol or sexual content of any kind is inconsistent with our mission.”

It’s nothing against the brewery or the event, Nester said — it’s just a matter of policy. “We do not sponsor any event that includes alcohol because of our work in substance use. It’s against our mission,” he said.

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