By Sterling McGinn
The Luce County Board of Commissioners heard annual reports from the LMAS (Luce, Mackinac, Alger, Schoolcraft) District Health Department and Pathways Community Mental Health at their March 18 regular meeting.
Nick Derusha administrator for LMAS, gave the 2024 fiscal year annual report.
“Fiscal year 2024 was another positive year for LMAS—we had a lot of exciting accomplishments,” said Derusha. “We have expanded our programing at the department, we now offer more school-based health services, more substance use disorder services, additional home visit support, and we hired another community health worker — and that was all done at no additional costs to the counties.”
LMAS also updated their strategic plan and launched a new customer satisfaction survey, which will allow residents to share feedback and suggest areas of improvement.
Derusha noted that several staff members received awards last year. Dr. James Terrian, deputy medical director, received the Roy R. Manty Distinguished Service Award, which is the highest individual award given to the local health community and bestowed to one citizen in Michigan annually. Dr. Terrian has been with the department for 52 years.
Derusha received the Michigan Association of Local Public Health Distinguished Service Award for serving as president of that organization during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Monica Eriksen, a harm reduction nurse from Alger County, received the Hometown Hero Award in Lansing.
LMAS, in partnership with Luce County Probation and Tahquamenon Area Schools, launched an 8-hour program for students that were referred to probation for substance use in school. The first sessions were held in July 2024.
Matt Maskart, CEO of Pathways, also gave an annual report that evening.
Pathways Community Mental Health serves people with severe mental illness, severe emotional disturbances, or developmental disabilities in Alger, Delta, Luce and Marquette Counties.
There are 46 community mental health services in Michigan, Maskart said, a far cry from the 16 state hospitals it used to have.
The new community-based services cost $3.5 billion annually, he said.
“If we were looking at individuals that would be in a state hospital, that would be about 97,000 individuals that could be served with $3.5 billion,” Maskart said. “Now we serve 37 times that at 350,000 people with those same dollars, so it is much more economical to do it this way then with the state hospitals.”
Pathways served 3,300 individuals in 2024, a figure that has risen in the last five years. A total of 173 adults and 32 children out of the 3,300 were from Luce County.
In other business, the board discussed the request from Luce County Building Inspector Dennis Alberts to increase the cost per square foot on non-residence building permits. The item was tabled from last month’s meeting.
The increase would be for pole barns, garages and porches/decks and not the residence itself. Currently, a residence is .47 per square foot, an “off grid cabin” is .40 per square foot and porch/deck, garage, pole barn at .20 per square foot. An increase would double the amount for the non-residence permits.
Compared to other areas, Commissioner Rathje said that the increase would make Luce County’s permits a little higher than others, though the building plan review is much cheaper than other counties.
After discussion, the board voted to move forward with the increase, with only trustee Nancy Morrison voting “no.”
