Public health director defends Indian suicide consultant expense

Montana Department of Public Health and Human Service Director Richard Opper defended the state's decision Wednesday to use nearly half of the funds allocated for American Indian youth suicide prevention to hire a contractor.

The contractor would be tasked with pulling together a coalition of tribal health care officials and others selected by the tribes, to construct a comprehensive plan to curb the high rate of suicide among young American Indians both on reservations and in urban settings.

The state Legislature's Interim Tribal Relations Committee, chaired by state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, sent a letter to Opper asking the state to reconsider using $100,000 to hire the contractor.

The letter was proposed by Sen. Kris Hansen, R-Havre, and unanimously endorsed by the committee at its March 26 meeting in Box Elder.

Hansen said she believes groups on the ground and in the individual communities are best acquainted with those they serve and the money would be more effective in the form of small grants to tribes to subsidise existing programs.

In a letter to Windy Boy, dated April 8, Opper said the state would not alter the plan.

Opper said in a phone interview Wednesday, that he agreed efforts to address suicide must be driven by individual tribes and communities.

But, he said, the state is seeking foundational change too broad to be brought about through small grants alone.

"And we wouldn't change the system by giving individual grants of what would probably come out to be no more than 20 grand to each of the tribes," Opper said.

Opper said there were differing proposals pushed by tribal council members, health directors and others consulted when the state visited with stakeholders from all eight American Indian communities in Montana.

Some, he said, advised that there not be a strategic plan, and that the $250,000 appropriated in the 2015 state budget be used for small grants. Others advocated that the money be used for a comprehensive plan and that the grants, absent such a plan, would be too small to make much of a difference.

But many of them, he said, agree the state's strategy is a sound and reasoned one.

He said the state needs to compile information on what does and doesn't work on reservations throughout the country and find how to include others, such as youth, is the best way.

Some money, about $130,000, would be left over that could go to tribal communities in the form of grants.

Critics, such as Windy Boy, have said that using so much money to hire a contractor will further deplete already limited resources meant to address suicide prevention. He said it will likely be difficult to persuade the Legislature to approve more money.

However, Opper said the hiring of a contractor would not be an issue. He said he is confident that the DPHHS chosen path is one that is more and not less likely to produce continued support.

"So we will be going back to the Legislature with a plan and I think the better way to ask for money is to say, 'Here's our vision and here are the steps we think are needed, not we but the tribes think are needed in order to achieve that vision,'" Opper said.