Anderson County Commissioners have removed one of their appointed board members from the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center Board and replaced her with a sitting county commissioner. Commissioners voted to remove Melanie Wallace from the post and appointed District two County Commissioner, Mike Blaufuss to serve Wallace’s unexpired term. Blaufuss told commissioners on Monday, November 17th, the move apparently rushed a planned special health center board meeting set for this week, apparently intended to discuss a board vote on a designation change for the organization, to increase the amount of federal healthcare dollars to which the organization can bill services.
The organization has been wracked by controversy since last summer, when high salaries, drawn primarily from federal Medicaid billings, particularly executive director Nathan Fawson’s over $600,000 salary. Anderson County commissioners say they understood that an additional round of salary increases had been implemented since the controversy began. All six district counties substantially reduced, or declined altogether ,their traditional annual budget allotments this summer.
