- State Rep. Michelle Salzman, who established the Mental Health Task Force of Northwest Florida in August 2021, refused to provide the information and sent us to the Florida House’s Open Government office, which didn’t have any data because much of Salzman’s solicitations were done not using her official email account.
Inweekly was forced to make a public record request to the University of West Florida Foundation that handled the funds. We received the last records late yesterday afternoon.
Who donated?
The total raised: $310,750
- Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh has pledged $5,000, but it has yet to be received.
The Northwest Florida Health Network was the largest donor – $131,250, 42.2% of the donations.
- In May, Salzman said the faith-based nonprofit – with a contract with the DCF to provide child protection and mental services in the panhandle – would execute the Mental Health strategic plan.
- Salzman serves on NWFHN board. She also serves on the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee.
Hospitals – 30.6%
| Baptist Health Care | 50,000 | |
| Ascension | ||
| Ascension Health Ministry | 25,000 | |
| Ascension Sacred Heart | 10,000 | |
| 35,000 | ||
| HCA West Florida | 10,000 | |
| Total | 95,000 |
Other Large Contributors – 19.3%
| Quint & Rishy Studer | 20,000 |
| Florida Blue Foundation | 20,000 |
| Levin Papantonio Rafferty | 10,000 |
| The Hive Foundation | 10,000 |
| Total | 60,000 |
Small Contributors – 7.9%
| Lakeview Center | 5,000 |
| Santa Rosa | 5,000 |
| UWF Foundation | 5,000 |
| Pensacola Christian College | 3,500 |
| Landrum HR | 2,000 |
| Escambia County Sheriff | 1,500 |
| FP&L | 1,000 |
| Kugelman Family Foundation | 1,000 |
| Marcus Pointe Baptist | 500 |
| Total | 24,500 |
How was it spent?
| Ernst & Young Study | 297,500 |
| UWF Foundation Admin Fees | 9,173 |
| Total | 306,673 |
The Northwest Florida Health Network signed a contract with the UWF Foundation to manage the fund in November 2022 – UWF_NWFLHN Contract.
Read EY Contract and EY Project Overview.
Who decided to hire Ernst Young and approved the contract?
We don’t know. The task force was told about the EY study and given a preliminary report at its January 2023 meeting – two months after the consultant was hired. Here is the press release announcing the EY’s hire, sent out less than 24 hours before the meeting.
- I asked Baptist Hospital Vice President Jennifer Grove if the task force had an executive committee with decision-making authority.
“It’s not an executive committee, it’s just the same group that’s been meeting all along to develop this plan,” Grove said. “It’s the group that has provided the clinical service that exists in our community input into the study.”
She later clarified the group consisted of Baptist, Lakeview, HCA West Florida, Northwest Florida Health Network, Department of Children and Families, Ascension Sacred Heart, and Community Health Northwest Florida.
Update: Inweekly reviewed the task force meeting notes and found that in March 2023, Ernst Young was introduced. The notes don’t say who made the decision to hire the consultant.
Representative Salzman introduced Clint Fuhrman with EY. As the task force has already made a tremendous impact in the community by raising awareness of gaps, and the need to have a community roadmap to care this great work is getting noticed. State leadership has noted that the work of the task force has been great but to make larger (state level) changes, we will need a well thought out, documented plan. To do this, we will need good analyzing data, comparative ideas, and more. Accomplishing all this will require dedicated professionals who can put this together into a concise report that then can be presented to the state asking for change (and potentially budgeted funds).
– Clint Fuhrman explained the project and what it will “dig deeper” to find, and what they hope to assemble as the data is collected.
– This project will need to be funded, and as a grass roots, community based task force, we will need to go to leaders and raise the necessary funds to complete the project
– UWF Foundation has agreed to act as fiscal agent and will oversee the contract and deliverables.