GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, (WPBN/WGTU) — One of the largest community mental health organizations in the state is on track to spend more money than it has.

Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority (NLCMHA) administration is looking into spending cuts.

One of its emergency mental health crisis services is being reduced.

It’s a resource that we use to help solve a problem if we’re dealing with, someone in crisis or families that are having issues that are repetitive.

The Family Assessment and Safety or FAST team is a resource for families and law enforcement.

Members are on call 24/7 for children experiencing an emergency mental health crisis.

“In cases where I’ve been involved, when the FAST teams come, the families didn’t know about the FAST team and it was something new to them,” said Brandon Brinks, the road patrol captain with the Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Office.

Capt. Brinks said in the past, deputies were able to call the FAST team for help in specific situations where a mental health professional would be better equipped to handle a mental health crisis.

“I think that’s a huge benefit versus having somebody there in uniform,” said Capt. Brinks. “Sometimes it doesn’t always help deescalate things, but we do the best that we can.”

However, last week Northern Lakes administrators sent local law enforcement an email.

They told law enforcement, “In light of NLCMH’s current cost containment, and overall services being provided, we’ve had to make the tough decision to reduce FAST (children’s mobile crisis) services.”

Before June 1, the FAST team was advertised as 24/7. Now, the page on Northern Lake’s website says the team works Monday through Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

“Having that non-law enforcement entity come in it was very comforting to the family to have those people coming in,” recalled Capt. Brinks. “Also they’re professionals. That’s what they do for a living is deal with people in crisis and searching out those resources providing counseling doing that type of management work.”

In the same email, administrators cite a policy for Intensive Crisis Stabilization Services (ICSS) by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. In the policy, it says it’s optional for Crisis Stabilization Units (CSU) like the FAST team to be 24/7.

“NLCMH crisis team will still take all of your calls 24/7. We will still assist your officers 24/7,” the email from administrator’s explained. “The new crisis center is still available for anyone to go to, and starting in July will be open 24/7. The big change for the community will be that families cannot call NLCMH and request FAST contact at the home after 5 pm (except on observed holidays).”

UpNorthLive reached out to Northern Lakes to clarify and ask, “If law enforcement called outside of the team’s new hours, would there be no on-call members to come to the scene?” We were told by Northern Lakes, this was a loaded question.

Capt. Brinks said what he’s telling his deputies as he understands it is, “We can still reach out to the 24/7 crisis hotline to see if there’s anyone that can help the family out through that. Otherwise we can still refer people, families, kids. We can still refer them to the FAST team for the following day if it’s after hours. So there are still resources available. We just might not get a team that comes directly to the scene to help us out.”

When UpNorthLive called Northern Lakes for comment, they told us only Interim CEO Brian Martinus is allowed to make a statement. Martinus is on military orders and out of the office until mid-June. We were given the option to wait until next week to have our questions answered when the two people Martinus designated to speak on his behalf would finally be available.