By Taylor Sisk, Staff Writer
OPC Area Program, the local governmental agency that oversees publicly funded mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse services, has entered into merger negotiations with the Alamance-Caswell Local Management Entity (LME).
OPC is responsible for the oversight and management of services in Orange, Person and Chatham counties. Alamance-Caswell has the same responsibilities for the two counties it serves.
“Our two area authorities have entered preliminary negotiations, but no decisions or commitments have been made at this time,†OPC director Judy Truitt wrote in an email to The Citizen on Tuesday.Â
Truitt said OPC was approached by Alamance-Caswell in mid-August and that a number of meetings between the two agencies have since been held.
The potential merger was precipitated when, last year, Rockingham County pulled out of the Alamance-Caswell-Rockingham LME alliance. That left Alamance-Caswell below the consumer population required of LMEs by the state. An agency must have a population of 200,000 or cover a five-county area to maintain what the state believes to be an economical use of administration dollars.
Since the loss of Rockingham County to CenterPoint Human Services, based in Winston-Salam, Alamance-Caswell has been exploring options. Â Â
Truitt said the merger would facilitate a consolidation of administrative functions, and that there should be little or no impact on consumers in the five counties, but that reduced administration costs could ultimately mean more funds available for services.
She noted that OPC is one of the smallest LMEs in the state and that a potential benefit of the merger would be the opportunity to demonstrate its ability to manage services for a larger consumer community. In a survey published July 1 by the Office of State Budget & Management, of the 23 LMEs in operation, OPC had the third-smallest consumer population, with 235,707.
“As federal health care reform is implemented across the nation, we expect that the public mental health system in North Carolina will face many changes,†Truitt wrote. “OPC is positioning itself to meet the demands of those changes as we move into the future.â€
Truitt said that the Alamance-Caswell LME is expected to make an arrangement to join another alliance by the end of June of next year.  Â