News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz On Thursday, the Northeast Michigan Community Mental Health Authority (NeMCMHA) board of directors and leadership team met to provide updates on various orders of business. The board approved the proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

ALPENA — The Northeast Michigan Community Mental Health Authority (NeMCMHA) Board of Directors met to provide updates regarding NeMCMHA operations and review the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) budget which included a $3.7 million increase in Medicaid revenue.

Connie Cadarette, NeMCMHA finance officer, reported to the board variances in the FY26 budget from the FY25 budget. In the revenue budget, Cadarette noted a $3.7 million increase in Medicaid revenue, which will total $37.7 million, 86.7% of the total revenue budget.

In the FY26 Revenue budget, NeMCMHA receives $526,638 from counties in the NeMCMHA service area, which include Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency, and Presque Isle counties. Local funding makes up 1.25% of the total revenue budget.

The revenue budget for NeMCMHA for FY26 totals $42.2 million, $4.2 million more than the previous FY25 $38 million.

Cadarette noted an increase in budgeting for NeMCMHA’s children home based services due to a staffing deficit. For FY26 expenditure budget, NeMCMHA is increasing budgeting by 148.3% for these positions, totalling $710,586.

“We have a bunch of open positions in that department and we budgeted for everyone,” Cadarette said. “We want to hire everyone. It’s very difficult to get people in that department.”

Later, during the operations report by Erin Fletcher, NeMCMHA clinical director, Fletcher also noted the staffing shortage in NeMCMHA children’s services is due to educational requirements.

Staff working with children in clinical counseling settings must hold a master’s degree in a related field, thus narrowing down the pool of qualified applicants, according to Fletcher. Fletcher also stated that most individuals who are qualified to provide counseling to children wish to work in school settings.

“Ordinarlily, the schools take a lot of our children’s staff because it’s their passion to work with children,” Fletcher said. “We provide amazing training and we serve the most intense population of kiddos out there. So as soon as they apply at a school, they’re a shoe-in.”

Nena Sork, NeMCMHA executive director, also stated that working for the schools have certain incentives that a CMH cannot provide, such as summer break.

“I can’t compete with summers off,” Sork said.

Sork and Eric Lawson, NeMCMHA board chair, took time during the meeting to review the status of the MDHHS’ intent to transition Pre-Paid Inpatient Health Plan (PIHP) entities to a bidding system for the state funding.

Sork said that she had planned for three different scenarios in anticipation for the transition; NeMCMHA is currently preparing for the third. This course of action entails NeMCMHA forming a new entity with other PIHPs to bid on funding, which is called Bridge Health.

Currently, MDHHS is undergoing an injunction in regards to this bid-out process transition. If the state courts rule in favor of the transition, NeMCMHA will have to bid for state funding.

According to Sork, the bid-out process will change how NeMCMHA provides services to the community. Sork said that it is difficult to plan ahead too far into the future as things change in the next coming months.

“My crystal ball is busted,” Sork said.

Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.