OTTAWA COUNTY — As Ottawa County’s Community Mental Health director grapples with serious challenges on how Medicaid funding shortfalls will affect his department and services, it is unclear if his contract with the county is valid.

Dr. Michael Brashears was appointed executive director of Community Mental Health Ottawa County on July 26, after serving as interim director at the beginning of 2024.

Since taking the role, he has been a vocal advocate of getting the state to find long-term solutions for Medicaid funding — the main source of money his department relies on to employ staff and provide services — even testifying March 11 before the appropriations committee for Medicaid and Behavioral Health in Lansing.

In their haste to permanently appoint Brashears to the role, however, details of the contract were never approved by the CMH Board of Directors, including his annual pay of $260,000 — $50,000 more than the salary of the past two county administrators.

“The fact that this step wasn't completed, and a discussion wasn't held, was somewhat reflective of the entire process, which was repeatedly pointed out as being hastily executed and less than exhaustive,” said former CMH board member and county commissioner Chris Kleinjans.

How we got here

Brashears previously served as the CMH executive director for Ottawa County from 2008 to 2013, when he left to pursue work as a provider for those with mental illness and intellectual and developmental disabilities.

When he left the role in 2013, then-deputy director and longtime CMH employee Lynne Doyle was promoted to the top position, where she remained for more than 10 years.

During her time heading CMH, Doyle helped execute the county's mental health millage, as needs outpaced available state and federal dollars. In March 2016, voters approved the 10-year millage, which generates an estimated $3.2 million annually.

In early 2024, Doyle took an extended medical leave before announcing her retirement in May. Brashears, who was then serving on a steering committee as the mental health millage nears its 2026 renewal vote, was tapped to serve in the interim role.

“I got an opportunity to obviously re-engage back into the public mental health system in that type of role, and really assisted Lynn and educating board members,” Brashears told ONN in a December interview. “When she got sick, I was just simply approached by the members of the steering committee. ‘Hey, would you ever think about being the interim?’ And then I was asked if I had formal interest by the CMH board chair, Gretchen (Cosby) and then that's how I kind of got back into it.”

Cosby is a former county commissioner and CMH board member aligned with the far-right political group Ottawa Impact, which held a controlling majority on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners in 2023 and 2024.

Brashears said he wanted to serve in the director role again.

“Once I decided I would take the role of interim, I knew that I would want to pursue being a candidate,” he said. “I wasn't in a position where I'll just help out for a while. What I said was, ‘I'm willing to be interim, unless that excludes me from being a candidate,’ because, you know, it can also go that way too, and many organizations do that … stabilize things to the best of their ability while they conduct a search.”

The CMH board’s executive transition committee, however, did not conduct a search despite calls from some members to explore options.

The committee, also led by Cosby, met July 1, when Cosby said Brashears was the only candidate after CMH Deputy Director Anna Bednarek withdrew her name from consideration. Despite having only one candidate, Cosby insisted a search wasn’t necessary.

“From my perspective, we’re very fortunate to have him step back in. He knows the organization,” she said during the July 1 meeting.

Kleinjans, who attended the July 1 meeting — despite not being selected to serve on the executive transition committee — said he felt Cosby and others were rushing the process.

“I've become concerned that we are expediting the goal of finding the best new executive director for Community Mental Health of Ottawa County too quickly,” Kleinjans said during public comment.

Then-CMH board member David Parnin said he would have felt more comfortable waiting longer to gauge the morale of CMH staff and how they felt about Brashears returning to his former role — after numerous controversial statements about mental health and CMH were made by OI officials and supporters. 

After an hour of discussion, the committee unanimously recommended the permanent appointment of Brashears.

Brashears said he wasn’t involved in the political division that seemingly dominated county government during the OI majority years.

“I work with everybody that's part of the county, and I've been very clear that my focus is on the job of folks — politics above it. I stay out of that because I don't control any of them. So there is a war going on between different factions of county government that I will tell you has had an impact to all the employees,” he said. 

He insisted that if the CMH board had opted for a national search, he would have been willing to engage in the process.

“If they had said, ‘Let's extend the interim time period for a national search,’ I would have been fine with that for sure, because I'll compete against anybody for the job,” he said. “I don't know all of the variables that went into the decision-making process on how I was appointed, so therefore I don't feel comfortable commenting on it. Personally, what I can tell you is I would have been willing to engage in any process that was recommended.”

Board members never saw a contract

At the beginning of the July 26 regular CMH board meeting, Cosby moved to amend the agenda at the last minute — a hallmark of the OI majority during their tenure — to include the permanent appointment of Brashears to the director role.

The resolution that was approved read: “To appoint Dr. Michael Brashears, for a term of 5 years, as executive director of Community Mental Health of Ottawa County, to be memorialized in a written contract, which the Chairperson is authorized to sign.”

No contract language was included in the packet for board members to review and a compensation figure wasn’t discussed, meaning the only component approved by the CMH board that day was the term of five years.

As of publication, the contract had not been added to the July 26 packet. ONN received the contracts through a Freedom of Information Act request.

“During the July 26 meeting where Dr. Brashears was confirmed as CMH director, no mention of the details of his contract were revealed other than its length was given by (then)-chair Cosby,” Kleinjans said.

“The executive search committee as a body never brought one to the full board for consideration and discussion. A review of my email indicates that a copy wasn't included in the board packet for the meeting nor was it sent out by the executive search committee as a stand-alone doc,” he said.

Three days later, on July 29, Cosby signed Brashears’ new contract with an annual pay rate of $260,000 — meaning he will earn $1.3 million through 2029.

Prior to the vote, OI Commissioner Sylvia Rhodea asked Cosby about the term length of the contract.

“Just because I’m new to this … the five years … is that typical?” she asked.

Cosby said a five-year contract was not unusual. 

“I have worked with corporation counsel and then also Dr. Brashears and we looked historically at other executives and this is not an abnormal timeframe,” Cosby said.

In fact, the previous contracts for Brashears and Doyle — dating back to Brashears’ original contract in 2008 — were for three-year terms, not five.

In December, Brashears told ONN he specifically requested the five-year term that deviated from historical practice.

“I’m the one that came up with the five-year term, because I wasn't really willing to engage in this work unless I knew that I would be able to be supported and work for at least that period of time,” Brashears said. 

When asked about the nearly $88,000 jump in compensation — Doyle was earning $172,500 when she retired — Brashears said he wasn’t comfortable discussing the matter.

“I'm not going to get into how I came up with that specific number with you, but when you look at CMH directors in 2024 starting off with over 25 years of experience, that's where it's at,” he said on his compensation. “So I don't believe my position is comparable to the administrator position at all, even though I understand how you got there.”

He said it was unfair to draw comparisons between a county administrator and a CMH director.

"The county administrator needs to be in a different kind of examination point," he said. "It's a tough job, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same scope. My job actually has a greater scope than that job, and it just happens to be in a county department."

What it means

Because the CMH board never saw or approved an official contract with Brashears before Cosby signed it, it could initiate a legal review of its enforceability.

The agreement also appears to conflict with the CMH board’s own bylaws, which address the ratification of contracts, outlining that the board chair is allowed to execute an agreement, but must do so in conjunction with the CMH board secretary.

Article XII: Execution of Instruments states: “When the execution of any contract or other instrument has been authorized without specification of the executing officer, the chairperson and the secretary of the board may execute the same in the name and on behalf of the board.  The board shall have the authority to designate other officers and agents who shall have the authority to execute any instrument on behalf of the board.” 

The CMH board appeared to follow this rule in Doyle’s contracts, the most recent of which was approved in 2021 when then-chair Matt Fenske and then-secretary Doug Zylstra signed the document to renew Doyle’s employment.

In the 2024 Brashears contract, however, only Cosby’s name is listed. Then-secretary Tom Bird, who currently chairs the CMH board, did not sign the contract. 

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Kleinjans said the situation is the consequence of a rushed process, which created an unforced error. He assigned some blame to himself while he was on the board.

“I really feel this is another example of the inexperience of the board in their roles, and I include myself in that assessment,” Kleinjans said. “The majority of Board members at that point had been in their positions for less than two years and simply did not know that a review of the contract was a precondition to making the offer to Dr. Brashears.”

Kleinjans, a Democrat, and Cosby, an OI Republican, were not re-elected to the board of commissioners in 2024. Cosby resigned from the CMH board in January; at the March 25 board of commissioners meeting, Kleinjans was not reappointed to the CMH board.

— Sarah Leach is the executive editor of the Ottawa News Network. Contact her at sleach@ottawanewsnetwork.org. Follow her on Twitter @ONNLeach.