Orange City, Iowa — Late this summer, it looked like the Sioux Rivers Mental Health Region was going to split up and its member counties would have to join other regions. But now that appears to have changed.
Sioux, Plymouth, and Woodbury counties have shared a state-mandated community mental health system called Sioux Rivers since 2014. Woodbury County officials decided last year to leave Sioux Rivers, due to disagreements with the other counties. Woodbury County is on track to join a region with Sac and Ida counties, called Rolling Hills next July. Sioux and Plymouth counties would need to bring one county in to replace Woodbury County and keep Sioux Rivers running, according to Iowa code, which says that a region has to be made up of at least three counties.
Both counties’ boards of supervisors, while looking to find a third county, also explored their options of joining another region — Northwest Iowa Care Connections.
But Sioux Rivers CEO Shane Walter, who works for Sioux County, tells us that all changed on Monday morning (October 22nd, 2018).
The Sioux and Plymouth county boards of supervisors will need to rescind their letters to Northwest Iowa Care Connections and will need to formally accept Lyon County, says Walter. He says it will become official at the start of the next fiscal year, which is also when Woodbury County will leave Sioux Rivers.
He says he hopes that will be complete by January 1st. According to Walter, Lyon County officials told them that they weren’t satisfied with the way Northwest Iowa Care Connections worked for them.
Walter says Northwest Iowa Care Connections may also be adding other counties on the east side of their region, which he says Lyon County officials thought may have made the situation even worse. Plus, he says this was the last opportunity under current law to do this sort of thing because the legislature has passed a new law that says that no new regions can be formed. And if Sioux Rivers would have dissolved, there would be no bringing it back. And since the region counties have to be contiguous and Lyon County is up in the corner, they would have been locked in. He says by joining Sioux Rivers, they at least continue to have options.
