KCCDD Chief leading campaign for Board of Mental Health creation

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Mark Rudolph, Chief Executive Officer at KCCDD is hoping that Knox County will one day have a Board of Mental Health.

That could become a reality but first the Knox County Board would have to approve putting in on a voter ballot, and then it would be decided at the polls in April 2017.

Being proposed is what’s called a “708 Board” and would be a local tax funded mental health authority to plan and fund mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse services. 

Services provided by agencies like KCCDD and Bridgeway have been drastically eroded he says and are left without any place to cut.

Rudolph tells WGIL it’s also an economic issue pointing to the 130 jobs and $10 million in local economic benefits that are created by KCCDD.

“If 20 years ago someone were to say to you ‘In five years, Maytag, Butler and OMC are going to be gone, you want to do something about that? They would say no, they’ve always been here they’re always going to be here,'”Rudolph says. “Maybe that’s what they are saying to us right now. ‘They’ve always been here.'” “Well, when we’re gone they’re going to say ‘gee we kind of miss those guys now.'”

Rudolph says this isn’t so much about helping KCCDD as it is making the community a better place to live.

He says some people think that mental illness isn’t something that affects them but it’s impossible to know if one day it might.

He cautions that without assistance he can’t be sure that his agency will be around in five years.

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