Unions representing employees at the Ingham Community Health Centers are calling for more accountability for the clinics’ multi-million dollar deficit.
Labor officials say they’ve circulated a petition calling for the health centers’ executive director Kris Drake to step down.
The decision follows the Ingham Community Health Center Board's vote, made just a week earlier, to lay off about 14 employees and close a clinic in downtown Lansing in response to the $4.5 million budget shortfall.
“The deficit has been there but when did this happen and why wasn’t it dealt with sooner?” said Teresa Carter, chair of the United Auto Workers union in Ingham County which represents some health center staff.
“This has just created a domino effect of everybody wondering what is going to happen with our jobs.”
Ryan Sebolt, chair of Ingham County’s Board of Commissioners, attributed the deficit to a lack of reimbursements covered by Medicaid, saying the overestimation was set in place by previous clinic leadership.
Drake was hired as executive director in 2021 and has been overseeing the county’s 13 federally qualified health centers since.
As part of the board’s cost-saving strategy, members approved the closure of the New Hope Community Health Center, which operates out of the Holy Cross Services location on North Larch Street. The board explained that its decision was driven by Holy Cross Services’ choice not to renew the clinic’s lease.
Some employees at New Hope are worried about how the closure could affect vulnerable populations.
“They just made it so much harder now as if being unhoused isn’t difficult enough,” said Desiree Cook, president of the Ingham County Employees Association.
Cook represents some behavioral health providers at New Hope. She notes that Holy Cross sought to terminate New Hope's lease last year, but the community health center board was able to renegotiate it.
“The health board could have decided to move them to a different location, and they didn't decide that they it feels like they just crossed their fingers and hoped that everything would be okay and obviously it's not,” said Cook.
