We call the Senate Finance Committee to order today's February the 10th please silence your cell phones
in attendance today we have
Senator Stidman, Senator Olson, senator Keel,
Senator Merrick,
Senator Kauffman
Senator Cronk and myself,
Senator Hoffman
Today we had one item on the agenda that's to hear an update from the mental health trust
Board Chairman, Brent Fisher, CEO, Mary Wilson,
COO, Katie Baldwin.
Please come forward, introduce yourselves,
and proceed with your presentation.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Mary Willson.
CEO of the Alaska Mental Health Trust.
Some of you may remember, last year was my first year,
and I've been here in the job about three weeks,
so I'm a little more of a widely veteran this year.
So let me introduce my team.
This is Brent Fisher,
who's the chair of our Board of Trustees,
and Katie Baldwin, who is our COO for the trust.
In today's presentation,
we plan to cover a bit of information about the Trust,
a financial update.
the trust FY27 budget, trust authority grants and programs,
the Trust Land Office and what's ahead,
including a bit about the Rural Health Transformation
Program from our perspective.
Before I turn it over to the chairman,
I want to note that we also have the trustee CFO,
Julie Farley, and the Truss Land office ED,
Justin Warner, who are on the line for questions
during the presentation if needed.
Allison, by a stock, our Chief Communications Officer
is also joining us today.
You also have a handout with detail in the Trust's MTAR grants.
We'll pick up on that on slide 15, so we're not quite ready for that as we start.
Thank you, Chairman.
Okay.
Thank You, Mary.
This slide here shows the current makeup of the Board of Trustees.
Many of my fellow Trustee's are in that, or a few of them are
in The Room.
Kevin Feynman is here.
those who are not present, or John Morris, Cory Feihy, Agnes Moran, and Josie Hickel.
The Board of Trustees, it's an independent board,
and we provide governance, fiduciary oversight,
and strategic direction to the organization in achieving the mission of the trust.
And I've been a member of, I have been at Trustee for the last five years.
This is my second year as Chairman of The board.
And I must say that this, I believe this to be the most productive Board of Trustees that the Trust has ever had.
For, just in the past three years, we've realigned the charters and the bylaws to more accurately reflect what's in a settlement document.
We've increased outlays and grants for our beneficiary serving organizations.
We have had a successful implementation of the.
crisis now program, which continues to grow throughout the state of Alaska, particularly in rural areas.
We've, we're focusing more on children and the prevention of mental health or at least making,
preventing deeper levels of middle health issues within the State by looking at children in the foster care program.
And we've just completed a new strategic plan for the trust that we think is the most
complete that's ever been had by the Trust.
We also, just for you who represent different areas of the state, Kevin Feynman, myself,
John Morris, and Josie Hickel all currently live in the Anchorage area.
But Josy Hackel was raised in Mousse Pass and Kevin Fyneman lived for many years out
in Nome.
Agnes Moran is from Ketchikan, Cory Fai, he lives in Chickaloon and Anita Halterman
in Eagle River.
So we represent or have lived in many parts of
Alaskans who we consider to be beneficiaries of the trust are Alascans
who experience one or more of
the conditions you see on this slide. We support both youth and adult beneficiaries
and we prioritize individuals whose mental health condition or developmental
disability place them at risk of institutionalization if they don't have
proper community level services and supports.
We also work upstream to prevent, when possible, those conditions in Alaska, such as the children that I mentioned.
Now, in this next slide, it talks about the trust, the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority is a state corporation
within the Department of Revenue that administers the Alaskan Mental health trust which is perpetual trust.
which improves the lives of beneficiaries.
The Trust was established following a landmark legal settlement in 1994.
We spent some time covering our history last year, but
if you'd like to learn more in depth about the inception of the Trust,
we have great resources on our webpage that you can look at.
The trust uses its land and cash assets to help ensure
that Alaska has an integrated comprehensive mental health program.
We do this through grant making and through advancing efforts to improve our system of care for our beneficiaries.
And while we are an independent corporation, we use our resources to partner closely with the state,
with local governments, with nonprofits, tribal partners, and providers,
and others who advance the mission of the trust.
We prioritize our funds for system improvement, innovation,
and strategic initiatives.
also overseen by the Board of Trustees, and which we'll talk a little bit more
about later in the presentation, is contracted exclusively by The Trust to manage its approximately
one million acres of land and other non-cash assets to generate revenue over time to better
serve the beneficiaries. And as an entirely self-funded corporation, the Trust uses no
its grant making or its costs for our staff.
A few other notes about the trust.
Per Trust statute, only the Board of Trustees
has the ability to direct the use of trust funds.
Through our grants to state agencies and to community partners,
we complement state spending for beneficiaries.
But trust fund are not intended to supplant state
spending.
No, nor per settlement documents was the trust meant to be the sole funder of the state's mental health program
We appreciate our strong partnership with the State. We've worked productively with
The executive branch department since our inception 30 years ago, and we will continue to leverage
Trust funds to support the states role in caring for the health and wellness of Alaskans
Now as evidenced by
Our recently revamped mission and vision, central to our work at the Trust is improving
the lives of Trust beneficiaries and the systems that care for them.
For three decades, the trust is invested in mental health services and supports impacting
beneficiaries in the system they rely on.
These investments have delivered real progress, yet we know that Alaska's system of care can
Together the trust and the land office aimed to carry this vision and mission forward
Working toward a future of thriving beneficiaries and communities in which they live. Thank you
Thank You Jeff Fisher
Thank, you just just a note. I think that
The legislature appropriates the dollars
that should be well understood.
I was here actually at this table
when the trust was established in 1994.
So it was never the intent that the legislature
was to pass its fiduciary responsibilities
on exclusively to the mental health trust for the record.
Thank you very much.
So, we're going to move to the financial, an update on our finances.
To update our financial position,
we are going start with our assets today. We can go to next slide.
There we go.
Trust investments as of the end of
the last fiscal year were 826.5 million plus
37.4 million in real estate equity.
Total assets of 865 million,
which is a bit of an increase over
the previous fiscal years of
848 million. In green,
you'll see the Mental Health Trust Fund,
managed by the Alaska Perm Fund Corporation,
also referred to as our Corpus internally.
That's got 559 million
Last year, it was 531 million.
Overall, since inception in 1996, our corpus has grown due to revenues from activities on trust land,
permanent transfers for inflation-proofing, and market growth.
It was a big part of that over time.
Our trust reserves, which are in blue,
We have reserves to prudently ensure available spending for beneficiaries even during periods of market downturns
Our goal is to have 400% of our yearly spend and we currently are at that with a hundred and forty-three point six million
In red we have unrealized appreciation of a 125 million our unrealize appreciation will vary year-to-year
It unrealizes appreciation our gains on paper
and are not available for spending until it is realized.
APFC investment team determines when it's realized,
and then finally in dark blue,
we have real estate equity of 37.4 million,
and that's down from 59 million the year before.
Those of you who have been here a few years,
remember the real-estate investment that the Trust did,
commercial real state, and you see it there.
You may recall that we reported to you that the board decided in 2024 to dispose of the trust commercial real estate portfolio
having met its investment objectives in
fiscal year 25 two of The six properties were sold and that reduction in equity is reflected on this slide
The sale also resulted in 21 million in proceeds for the Trust in FY 25, which is reflective in the reserves
So we sold some property
The the value of the assets went down and the money that we made went into those reserves to make sure that
We have the 400% we need every year just so that's clear
Yes, whether you want to go over it now or when we get to the real estate section
For you to review the process of how properties are identified
for sale and
the Process of
public sale. So I think that is has become a topic of interest to some
legislators. Okay I can do that now because I don't we don t have another
slide on commercial real estate since we're dissolving those assets and if you
have any other questions that I cant answer we'll follow up with that so we
started with six properties that were bought
some of them are over 10 years old and made the decision in 2024 to start
divesting and so far as of today we've divested four of those properties. One
was in Anchorage but the other were in Texas. The final two remaining properties
one's in Austin and one is in San Antonio and those are the
decision about when to put them on the market.
It does depend on advisors we get and consultants around what's a good time, whether the tenants
are full or not, that type of thing.
So that's why those two properties haven't sold yet.
But we're going to plan on, I think, probably nine months from now we'll re-review and put
those on the market.
There aren't any other properties in Alaska from this book of business.
The mental health trust so the Alaska property was on
Are you talking about the one on commercial drive that sold this last year?
That's the only one in Alaska that I'm aware of any any
Adjacent landowners
Yeah, so I mean maybe I am not sure actually I don't know if
Mr. Chair, are you referring to land sales within the state of Alaska?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, thank you very much, Brenda.
Yeah, so land sale we're going to come to later and we'll try to answer that in a future
slide, slide with the T.L.O.
But the unless you like, I have just you on the line, she can talk about it now in specifics.
But I do think we will talk out T L. O. properties later in the slide presentation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it'd be helpful if we go back and take a look at those six properties
as the ones in Texas and the one in Alaska that, a few years ago, we had to have a slide
on the listing of those properties and income and expenditures, and I
think could be beneficial for the committee to
have that data on each individual property. What was paid, what the debt
fall of wax until liquidation, equity reversion back
so we can see what was made or not made on those properties.
And clearly, sounds like we're moving forward
to go from those six holdings down to two
that are more problematic, interpretation I get
than the other ones.
And I'd like those included also.
So we were slowly getting to the point
where we are closing that chapter of the real estate.
And that would be the real estate holdings, not statewide real-estate.
Yeah.
Any disposable of land?
Yeah, I think we would like to know what input adjacent land owners have had.
Okay.
And utilization of those funds, where do those dollars go?
Of interest to the committee senator keel. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and I think
Director Warner you you mentioned that the two commercial real estate properties sold in 25 that and
Think you said the proceeds got added to reserves is there a differentiation between the the equity and and net profit from those
In in the case of either the first two or these most reason to is any of that added to the corpus of the funds holdings
That's invested by the permanent fund corporation or does all the money go into into your reserves?
Yeah, I'm gonna let
Julie who's on the line help answer that from finances, but the
To go back to your question
We did go through all of finances in our finance committee for the board
And so you can look at all that information and then we'll send it to you afterwards on that
But Julie, can you answer?
the question Julie Farley please identify yourself for the record through the chair
the senator keel this is Julie farley the cfo the alaskan mental health test
can you hear me yes we can hear you loud and clear
so senators killed questions related to the next proceeds of the commercial real estate
have been used to increase the amount of reserve at the trust and they are not transferred to
principal. The reserves are used for the annual payout that the Trust funds to fund this budget
every year. Senator Keel. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I'd love to take the director up on her offer of the the minutes of those finance committees so that we can get a look at how they reason that. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you and well it goes through all the four sales that
we've already executed on in the end. What did we pay for them? What was the debt? All the things you're talking about.
I think it should be in there and we'll forward that and I'm sorry we didn't bring it today.
Thank You.
We're good yes
This slides illustrates how we determine our available funding each year and the amount reflected here is for FY 27
So let's go over the FY27 funding starting at the top
The largest portion of our annual spend is funded through a withdrawal from our invested assets
This is 4.5% of the average value from the previous four years
As noted on the slide, FY27 is the first fiscal year where the payout reflects our increased payout rate.
Trustees worked with Cowan as a consultant last year to consider our annual withdrawal from our invested assets.
And determined that it was prudent to change it from 4.25, where it had been since 2008.
to 4.5. That increase is reflected for the first time in our FY 27 budget, and it resulted
in an additional 1.9 million in available funds.
Moving to the next line, the Trust Land Office or the TLO spendable income also contributes
to our available spend estimate, shown here at 4,3 million, which is a two-year average.
We also have a two-year average of prior funds carried forward, which is 4.5 million.
These are approved funds from prior years that have not been fully expended.
Unused grant funds do roll back in to our annual spend calculation.
And lastly, we have 2.4 million in interest earnings from our most recent fiscal year that contribute to the spend.
Senator Stedman
Thank You mr. Chairman
Moving from four and a quarter to four-and-a-half
Could you elaborate a little bit more on that why that was recommended or pressures that pushed that discussion?
Yeah, through the chair I'd be happy to so this was a full board discussion as well as coming out of finance committee from our structure
And the Calvin presentation really discussed the idea of in perpetuity, what does that
mean?
And part of what they discussed is you can't disadvantage current beneficiaries for the
benefit of future beneficiaries.
So if you have 4.25, the question is, is that short-changing current beneficiary when we
know that the corpus is going to go up at a certain rate over time and we have that historically?
to raise that to 4.5, so we give, which still preserves with, they showed us, I mean,
with 90% accuracy, the future 20 or 30 years down the road, but allows us to give more
money to the contemporary beneficiaries.
And that was how the discussion went.
Mr. Chairman.
Senator Stadman.
I think we should bring that conversation to that table when we have the permanent fund
board here.
I don't think our pay out there is five and have that discussion.
the permanent fund and the mental health trust
and in that they're both in perpetuity
and have well-diversified portfolios.
So we should possibly ask Callan or mental Health
and department fund to compare those two portfolios
and to have that discussion here at the table.
Thank you, Senator Stidman.
Going back to the Mental Health Trust, please proceed.
Good please proceed
Because we know that there's an interest in how we are investing with our partners and communities
This is illustrated in this slide, which is our annual trust approved spending
This shows a trusty spending year over year
As you can see, there is a trend of increasing spending, particularly on beneficiaries, which
is the long blue line on this graph.
I'll note that this chart goes through FY 25.
Does not yet show the increase pay out of 4.25,
which began with our FY 27 budget.
The reason we're ending up with an increase, as you see is largely because as I said earlier
on the slide, we set our budget by the four-year average as we look back, and when you use
bad market years that were included in that the year before and those drop out and so the
four-year average goes up and that's why the money's so much more in FY 25. So it's a good
formula we have we feel like. We have a Good average of risk and then benefit to the contemporary
group. Can I request the grants that are made to grantees that
time. Senator Stegman. On that subject, Mr. Chairman, four of us here at the committee
took a trip to Mount Edgcombe School here last weekend, and it was reflected in that
visit that there's some mental health issues the school is struggling with. And I was
wondering what the mental Health Group here, at
mental health well being of the of
the Alaska students at the Monashkam High School.
That's a thank you. It's really good question. We do have more
information later in the slide deck on the grant making
element, but I can also ask Katie to answer here
if that would be helpful. Through the chair Katie Baldwin Johnson
That's a great question.
I too have visited the school there, and at this point,
I think that we can go back to our team
and see if there has been engagement
or conversations related to that,
but we're certainly willing and available to, you know,
speak with folks in the community to see
if they're some solutions that
we could work on together.
It's interesting.
And the follow-up, yeah, it's nice to talk to the
community, but whether you talk
And then if mental health group here could report back to the Chairman on what the outcome
is, if the Department of Education doesn't engage as fully as I think some of us would
like them to in that school, we need assistance.
And it looks like the Alaska Mental Health Trust is in a unique position to help the
youth of Alaska going to that School.
the other school districts in the state of Alaska,
their responsibility lies with the Department of Education.
So we have students from Mount Edgcombe
that come from all sectors of the State of Alaska.
They have been a top performing school,
but many of them have issues as well.
particularly those that are coming from western Alaska with the two disasters, one up north
and the one in my district.
Please proceed.
I'm just one last comment on this slide.
We did include our value of our below market leases for beneficiary serving organizations
on the slide, so it's about a million dollars that was added compared to when we showed
We have a few slides on the Trust Land Office.
As mentioned earlier in the presentation, the trust land office sits within the Department
of Natural Resources and manages the truss 1 million acres of land to generate revenue
for the trusts and its beneficiaries.
The trust owns about a million acres of land in southeast, south central and interior Alaska, and that land is managed by the TLO, the Trust Land Office.
We have an excellent team at the TLO, which sits in DNR and is overseen by Justin Warner, T LO Executive Director.
The Trust has the responsibility to manage the trust lands and non-cash assets over time.
to generate revenue to support the trust's work on behalf of beneficiaries.
We have several asset classes that we manage within our land holdings.
Forestry, minerals and materials, energy, commercial ground leases,
and program-related real estate and land sales leases and permits.
revenues from land trust lands support our ongoing work on behalf of trust
beneficiaries. Trust lands like trust finances are managed with perpetuity in
mind. As you can see we anticipate earning more than 12 million in revenues
from our trust land assets this year. If you have if you
have the map that identifies these resources and where they're located
We'd like to see that if not, please, can you provide that map to the committee?
Yeah, we'll thank you.
We'll provide it later.
We don't have that in this presentation, but we can definitely show that to you
In FY 25, the TL are generated more than 12 million in revenue, and as referenced earlier,
The TLOs, MOUs with Ketchikan, Rangel and Kenai, foster a collaborative approach to land development
across southeast and south-central Alaska by formalizing these partnerships.
The TLO and its local government counterparts aim to align planning efforts,
shared technical expertise, and identify mutually beneficial opportunities
that support both trust revenue generation and local economic development.
Because the T LO offers financing for the purchase of trust lands,
interest revenues are generated on top of the sale price.
In FY 25, that interest totaled about 846,000.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of years ago, we put in a little bit of money to Alaska housing to facilitate an
equity infusion into subdivisions that may not make the hurdle rate if they're with a
mental health trust authority, the University of Alaska at the end, or I was wondering if
Also, I'd like to
Find out if the trust is still
Just doing platted subdivisions in communities and not putting in the the roads or the utilities
or if they're actually working with the communities so when they do a plated subdivision
They're not leaving it up to a decade or two decades out to try to get those
Road corridor is built and the utility is in.
Yeah, thank you for the question.
I'm going to call on Justi who's on the phone to help answer both those questions.
Justy Warner.
Thank you.
This is Justey Warner, Executive Director of the Trust Land Office for The Record.
We did apply to Alaska Housing Finance Corporation for the funds that you discussed, and we have not been awarded funds.
We have collaborative conversations. We kept in good touch.
But today we haven't received any funding.
development in communities. So that's kind of what those MOUs are that Mary has
described in the different communities, so what we've been doing is taking this
new approach in signing M.O.U.s with the local government so we can ensure that
you know the fact that we are both taking are leading to the same place
And ultimately, at the end of the day, that's when progress is made.
And so what we do is we sign these MOUs, we identify each of our intent
and how we're going to work together.
And we have a thing that we are looking at with subdivision.
You know, you've got quite a bit of large tracts of land
that do look at some dividing, and we
pulling utilities in but we have to make sure that you know our due diligence is done with trust
funding and we need to have a positive return and when those don't pencil or the risk is pretty
high then that is when you you typically can't move forward on those those projects and that's
kind of that infusion that we were talking about that way we're seeking. So can you provide the
When was the request made of the housing authority and how much and can you provide the committee?
With that request
Sure, thanks absolutely we can follow up and provide a committee that information
Senator stedman. Yeah, if I could mr. Chairman, there was a subdivision in Petersburg. Could you?
elaborate on that if there's been an agreement there with the community or not
Ms. Warner.
Tricking, Senator 7 to the chair.
You're exactly right. There is still an updating subdivision that is platted.
In Petersburg is a large subdivision and
we have been unable to move forward with that.
We need additional local signatures on that flat to
move forwards and we are in discussions of
And that just hasn't been, hasn't found resolution yet.
Again, it's not that's an area where, you know, we need to look at the size of the
subdivision, the absorption rate in the community, lot size and price for community needs.
And then road costs and road standards that are required.
Senator Stadman.
until such time as there's an agreement to get the utilities and road in either through L.I.D.s or some other mechanism.
However, you guys want to do it. But just doing a platted fly-by in a community and a major subdivision.
And it is a large one for the smaller communities in southeast of what we're referring to.
Maybe not up north it'd be.
You know, but it's a big subdivision down here.
that there'd be decades before that road was built
and the utilities and so on and
so forth were put in.
So I think it's in my opinion, it is a responsibility
of not only mental health trust in their land subdivision
but the University of Alaska and DNR
not to make a mess in the communities
when they do subdivisions.
And it certainly appropriate to do them in phases,
smaller amounts.
And if the program that we talked about for the equity
infusion, which is to bring the ability for
the subdivision to meet the hurdle rate, so the mental
health trust makes their return to the university or DNR,
if under the impression that that program's working and we
can get an update on it, we can put more funds into that
to facilitate the three entities moving forward
with their subdivisions because everybody wins
in the end on it and hopefully there'll be a return
of some of the capital back with property tax arrangements
with the community over the next 10 years or however,
so it's not a, we're not running a charitable case here,
but we are trying to come up with a business model
that actually works and moves some
these subdivisions forward so we'll take that up with Alaska housing and see if
we can't the foreign entities can all work together because we these are small
appropriations here at the table even though they we have tight budget times
but involved relative relationships we're not talking hundreds of millions of
dollars here I think the last time we did what four million or something at
So we'll get that report and work with you, and I am looking forward to a solution at
The Petersburg subdivision and not a mess to give to the next generation
Thank you so much. It will take you up on that. Thanks a lot. Thank You Senator Stedman. Miss Wilson, please proceed
Please proceed
Go on
Thank
One other thing on our highlights is, I see Cape, which I think you've all heard about.
It's the area that's being developed for exploration, for minerals and gold, heavy metals.
And so that is on track, we've had encouraging results, and we have been doing field work
there for about 10 years, so more updates as we get more information on that.
Here's a breakdown of our trusty approved budget for FY27.
Based on approved budgets, you can see the largest portion of annual spending is grant making and beneficiary initiatives.
This blue bar includes MTR grants to state agencies, and we're going to talk about those more in the next slide.
But also grants for non-profits, local governments, tribal entities and other beneficiary serving organizations.
Trust Authority budget, and the green one is the TLO budget.
We do work continuously to control spending.
At the Trust authority, we have 17 FTEs, that's the blue one,
and we've not increased any Fte since 2017 when there were 16.
So it's been almost 10 years since we added a person.
And if you'll recall from the previous slides where we showed how much we spend every year
and how the spending and the grant administration has gone up, we feel like that's a really
good sign that we're operating pretty lean.
I feel that as having reviewed it in the past year.
So I wanted to reassure you about that.
For the TLO, they have 17 FTIs also.
They're down from 19.
So that's sort of where we sit.
It's about, you know, five to six million for each of those.
And then you can see the grant making.
I'm going to turn it over to Katie to talk about the next slides.
Thank you.
And for the record, Katie Baldwin Johnson, chief operating officer.
This slide reflects a closer look at our FY27 MTAR grants to state agencies.
Of the 11.4 million, these are grants
to our state of Alaska partners that receive trust funds through the state
of the Alaska budget process, and there are more than 60 MTar increments
that have been transmitted to be included in the FY 27 budget.
Those of you that will be serving on the department's budget subcommittees, you'll see the MTAR increments as part of that process and detail and
You'll you have a lot more information about those
But just to also bring to your attention you do have the handout that has a list of all the FY 27 MTR
grants as well
The MTR funding is used for a variety of purposes, including capital funds for grant
programs to work with Trust beneficiaries, training programs for beneficiary-connected
workforce, workforce priority for our state partners, and many of the nonprofit organizations
across the state serving Trust Beneficiaries.
Data and planning efforts in collaboration with our State partners focused on the comprehensive
and then also funding multiple positions, excuse me,
in departments and divisions that are working on initiatives
that our priorities for the trust.
I will mention that there is a slight increase
in our MTR funding annually,
but we continue to work closely with the departments on that.
Next slide.
Because we feel did.
Before you proceed to the next slide,
Senator Cronk, thank you, Mr. Chair, so I'm looking at this list I see
16 projects with UAA. Is there any other projects for the UAL for UAS or any of our university campuses?
So I believe this is the
Full and complete list of MTR projects right now, but I certainly can double check that
With our folks so at that time I don't think so
Through the chair. Is there a reason the other universities don't have any funding?
You know, I would actually check with our team we collaborate with the entire university system and coordinate on those things
But I'd be happy to get back with you. Thank you
Thank You Senator Cronk
Please proceed
Thank, you
so
We wanted to spend just a few more minutes offering some additional detail on our MTAR projects and
just reminder we talked about this. MTar is approved by our Board of Trustees and it's been
through the state budgeting process and these grants demonstrate a long-standing collaboration
and commitment to our state government partners that play a critical role in serving our beneficiaries
since inception in 1994.
We have granted more than $260 million to state agencies.
Prior to I think going into a little bit more detail on this slide. I just want to highlight a few examples of some MTAR projects
With state agencies
One of those has been to support the peer support certification process through the Department of Health and Division of Behavioral Health
These funds have supported the department to oversee the continued dissemination of the certified peer-support
curriculum, training oversight of the Commission for Behavioral Health Certification.
Peer support specialists are critical to many of
the initiatives that we're working on with our partners in the state.
Our crisis initiative, the stabilization, mobile crisis teams, and our call centers
all employed peer support specialist.
So we view them as a key part of our workforce.
So this is one of
Another one would be a grant to Department of Health,
Senior and Disability Services for Adult Protective Services.
This is a direct service example of a Grant
that supports operations of Adult protective services
to maintain investigation capacity,
to assist with institutional discharge planning,
from hospitals and Department
of Corrections, and also assist
with petitions for guardianship or conservatorship.
In the last year, 183 beneficiaries were assisted,
and 100 plus people were trained in that process.
There are several other examples.
We're happy to go through those,
and we also have information posted on our website
with detail of all of our MTR grants
and all our authority grants.
So I wonder...
We've had in western Alaska two communities, Kipnuk and Kugilnak where we had 1,600 individuals
that had to be relocated and the vast majority of them are still not back in their communities.
I'm sure that they don't have the resources to submit applications, but
the mental health trust has vast resources and personnel.
What, if anything, has the Mental Health Trust done
to look at the situation for these individuals
that are surely devastated and have many problems
for the coming year?
Thank you for your question.
We really are working closely with our partners and folks that have been very engaged in
focusing on solutions and support to those displaced
individuals and
We also are aware that we need assistance to connect
with the resources at a local level
to help understand what those needs are.
We partner with Rasmussen, we partner
with The Department, South Central Foundation
was working very closely in this space.
We wanted to be careful not to essentially
Get out ahead of many of the individuals that we're working to try to support some of those solutions
But we still stand ready
to
collaborate with folks on solutions and
opportunities where we can support and so if there are monetary needs that they come up with
That are not included in FY 27 budget
How would they be addressed
that were directly related to mental health?
Well, there's, you know, the process through the state budgeting process,
which is an option, and certainly our Board of Trustees.
Well aware of the State Budgeting Process.
Yes, sir. And also our board of trustees approve authority grants,
which are grants to community organizations, non-profits,
that don't come through that process.
And that would probably be one of
the best avenues for us to collaborate on those issues.
So, if the people that you're collaborating with come up with a program to address the
mental health needs of this region, you feel that your situated with this budget to
address unnecessary or unrequested funds that are not in this
budget, to do those problems?
Yeah, I'm going to jump in on that one through the chair.
So.
Going back on that Katie's absolutely right right when that disaster happened
We jumped in with our partners to say how can we most how could we best assist?
So we've been talking from the very beginning and we have a lot of grants that we can give out in
Partnership depending on what's available. I think your question about FY 27 is is there flexibility in that budget?
Should things come up that weren't anticipated and yeah, that's part of the rework
We've done in our strategic planning and in and the Katie has done an awesome job in this path
you're really figuring out how do we become flexible in the future because we
set our budget so many years ahead and so yes there's flexibility and money
aside for things that come up that the trustees are interested in doing or
that environment needs or that we see as a vital need in state of Alaska at that
time. Thank you. Please proceed.
Unless there's any questions about this, I just want to highlight the column to the right in red are the differences between what our Board of Trustees recommended for the budget and what the Governor recommended.
a coordinated and planned response to individuals across the state, the Crisis Call Center response
to calls for suicide prevention, individuals in stress, 24 hours a day. It's also operating
the 988 call line. And we're seeing a consistent increase in the volume of individuals that
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was wondering if there was a dialogue with the administration on the budget reductions
that was submitted to the legislature after the governor reviewed the Budget Submission
from Mental Health and what kind of dialogue and reasons the Administration put forth
to offer up these reductions.
I think the reason was overall budget process is not specific to that you'll notice that we the Board of Trustees
Last year we did a 750
Trust grant and then 750 general fund request
To get the 15 1.5 million and this year the trustees did 1 million from us and a 500,000 requests
Respectfully because of our anticipation of the scarcity and the money and then this is was still deducted as it was last year
There are two revenue sources we've stated you stated that the mental health trust has
several million dollars for
For appropriations and you would have not made those requests if you did not have the funds
So it's not as though by reducing the mental health budget. It helps the general fund
So that is correct. I think that's what Senator Steadman is getting to in in your view or in the viewpoint of the board
when they made those requests or those quick requests justified or
Or was the justification that the governor utilized in vetoing them more justified than the department's request to expend those dollars on behalf of the clients that are in need of mental health services in the state of Alaska?
I believe that's the question.
And if I'm understanding your question, and I don't know if you have an answer either, but I think I, I am not aware of justification for the reduction, if that's what you're asking.
And through the chair, this is Katie Baldwin, Johnson.
If I might add, we do.
communicate with OMB and did get our communication from ONB articulating the reductions that
the governor provided in his budget and specifically the AHFC special needs housing and the homeless
assistance program in the Governor's letter articulated the replacement of our general
And as far as Mary mentioned the reduction for the crisis call center we we are assuming is related to the
Type budget fiscal year
He's perceived senator senator keel sorry to be slow on the slow-on the uptake there mr. Chairman
so we'll
Figuring out fun sources is is
Part for the course around here. I was interested in the homeless assistance program though
It looks like if I'm reading this right and if there's no typos that there is both a fun source change and an an
Increase proposed in in that one instead of 2.9 million
general fund in The mental health budget
It'd be 4.1 million in HFC dividends
Can you lend any insights on on what's going on there?
Through the chair nothing more than what you see as well is that we were pleased to see that the governor was
recommending increase receipts for that purpose the need far exceeds
What we have here on paper today, so we we're pleased
To see
That
Thanks the question, you know regarding those two appropriations for housing grants and for homeless assistance
That is four and a half million dollars that you propose that could be utilized for those services that are well within your means.
And I know that the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation has a broader scope under their responsibilities.
housing. Housing continues to be, or a lack of housing continues
to a major, one of the top major issues our state is facing.
Without housing, it's hard to recruit individuals to provide the basic services, and it is hard
to retain those individuals if they don't have adequate housing so, you know, I think
The governor proposes budgets.
We are the appropriators, and we make those final decisions.
He ultimately has the right to use his red pen to veto
anything we propose.
So I think Senator Keel, it's our power to appropriate.
Please proceed.
So we spent some time on the trust budget and the Trust MTAR grants to state agencies and now we want to pivot to the
Trust grant making and system change work that happens independent of the state budget process
So I want a touch on this slide on our
Strategic planning and you heard chair Fisher mentioned that we have a first new strategic plan in a long time
And that were really excited about what this looks like
So during the last year, we worked on updating it.
What you'll see up there is we've reframed our priorities.
So we still serve the same beneficiaries.
No one's dropped out.
The group that you saw at the beginning is the
same.
But we were organizing our
priorities in terms of, in a sense, it's kind of a
medical model.
Some of you may remember I'm a pediatrician, but so we're
doing prevention and early intervention for all
crisis response for everyone that needs it in the moment.
Treatment and recovery, the acute phase after the crisis.
And then finally ongoing support and well-being.
Those are our priorities and we're gonna organize
our work in those priorities.
And when you look at the
Outcomes and the effectiveness of treatments in Alaska mental health and we've heard a lot about challenges
Trying to get organized in this way. We feel like we can really be effective and you'll see the core commitments
The first one is data.
We want to really leverage data so we understand
What the problems are in the state better so that we?
Understand if there are effective well-tuned
evidence-based interventions that we're using them as much as possible and that
we understand what drives increased costs and decreased costs in where you get
quality outcomes. So that's what the data is going to be about. Sometimes we've got
data, sometimes we don't, but we need to understand both for the trust and the
work we do and we grant.
are they effective? Are they making a difference? But we also want to contribute with our partners
at the state in this. And we've worked closely with the Department of Public Health, of course.
The other thing of our commitment is we work through partners. When we go around and speak to
to the trust and then get money sent to you,
you don't qualify through the Trust as a beneficiary,
that's not the process.
The process is you are a beneficiaries
if you have those conditions and we work through partners
to distribute the money that we give.
And so those partners are critically important,
those partner know a lot about what's needed
and share that information as we set our strategy
and our budget for the following year.
And then finally, working with the Trust Land Office.
They are fiduciaryly responsible for managing that land.
As you heard, we get money from the offshoot of the market
through the Perm Fund money, and we
get the money that's contributed through
the trust land office to us.
So those are very important core commitments
that we will continue to have.
So we're making data-informed investments.
We're fostering transport and partnerships,
and were stewarding our natural resources.
operationalizing, the strategic plan,
and so more details to come on how exactly that will work
in terms of our staffing,
but I wanted to let you know about that.
So what types of trust grant investments do we have?
In 2025 the trustees approved 10 million in MTR grants and 19 million other trust grant making so that was 2025
We've been jumping from 2025 26 and 27, but that's because that is the last complete year
Well, this committee hears about our MTER grants
We want to spend a few minutes on other types of grantmaking much of the trust Grant activity occurs completely
Independently from the state budget we have the ability to award grant funding directly to community partners
In addition to our state partnerships, the Trust is proud to partner with many providers,
non-profits, local governments, and tribal organizations to have a positive impact on
our beneficiaries and the providers that care for them.
While MTR grants are only awarded through the state budget, we award grants to partners on a
quarterly basis. Last fiscal quarter, for example,
We also show mini grants on these slides.
These small awards are for individual beneficiaries and they are incredibly impactful.
Mini grants are awarded through a partner agency and can support a variety of purchases
that improve the quality of life.
More information about these grant programs, including how to apply, can be found on our
website.
So, we talked about the types of grants on the last slide, and now this slide offers
an at-the-glance look of our FY 25 grant awards and where they went.
There were 149 grants awarded to communities across Alaska.
We have five active below-market leases to beneficiary-serving organizations on trust
lands, those are now reflected in in-kind grants.
And our grant fundings are often leveraged
with other community funders.
We also have some great highlights on this slide illustrating
some of the impacts of trust grand making in FY 25.
To call out just a few, the programs that we funded,
we trained more than 5,000 beneficiary-serving individuals
from 100 communities.
We supported close to 5 thousand families
with early intervention and education and support programs.
9500 mobile team responses to individuals in a psychiatric crisis
Katie yeah, thank you through the chair
This slide is an opportunity to highlight
Some of the trust grant making that is direct to our non-state
Community-based organizations and nonprofits serving trust beneficiaries, and I'm just gonna highlight a couple of these
Set Free, Alaska is located in the Matsu Valley.
Trust funds were awarded to the organization to assist
in its therapeutic campus expansion.
Which essentially the the plan for that is to double the capacity of their children and families program by adding up to 70 new
clients
Increase their outpatient adult
Program by 75% serving individuals impacted by addiction
Essentially set free Alaska serves about 600 beneficiaries per year and with these funds in this grant
approximately an additional 340 beneficiaries per year.
So this is just an example of how we can partner
with organizations to address their wait list,
address the capacity needs, and expand services
to beneficiaries.
Another one I'd like to highlight is the Grant
to South Central Foundation for the Traumatic
and Acquired Brain Injury Project.
These funds, this actually has been funded for four years,
upwards of $1.3 million.
And this has supported them in planning, the effort,
which basically enabled them to implement the early identification
and intervention services to address acquired
and traumatic brain injury within their system of care.
This has an incredibly successful project.
It will create and implement processes for early identification and intervention services
for traumatic and acquired brain injuries and will also involve system level changes.
There is certainly the opportunity to look at scaling this, learning from what South
Central Foundation has implemented.
836 trust beneficiaries have been diagnosed with at least one traumatic brain injury diagnosis
thousand encounters through South Central Foundation.
Another one just briefly to highlight volunteers of Alaska, volunteers
of America Alaska. The trust funding supported the first withdrawal management
facility for adolescents in Alaska this is a new service type and feels a
critical gap in the continuum of care for youth in Alaskan.
Arch is available statewide to youth with a substance use disorder who require
withdrawal management. They're an 18-bed facility and they currently serve
about 60 youth a year, all of whom are trust beneficiaries.
Many of these other projects are located in other communities.
A2P2 provides services statewide.
Residential youth care, RYC, is located
in Ketchikan.
We provided some funding to expand and do renovations
to one of their facilities that will enable them to
expand a community youth center to support
youth and young adults in that community.
The Tundra Women's Coalition Center in Bethel focused on transitional housing to youth,
ages 18 to 24 in that community, and other examples, the Tanana Chiefs Conference,
we were, our trustees were able to support a below-market lease for Tananana chiefs
for their adult behavioral health treatment facility on trust lands in Fairbanks.
and TCC currently provides medically managed withdrawal management residential treatment
services to trust beneficiaries at this property.
So there are many examples.
We have much more detail of our authority grants on our website that describes all of
the projects, the location, what it's intended to accomplish and the intended outcomes for
Very briefly we engage in many other activities besides grant making just an example through our
Staff leadership and technical assistance resources. We strive to support the capacity enhancement of beneficiary serving organizations
to enhance, expand, and strengthen services and address gaps in the continuum of care.
One thing I'd like to highlight on this slide is the trust offers grant writing and proposal
development opportunities and assistance to organizations that are seeking additional
grant opportunities.
And our contractors work with those organizations to prepare competitive proposals to federal
opportunities available and through this trust investment
Essentially over the last three years. It's generated 45 million dollars of new grant dollars for the state of Alaska to support beneficiary serving organizations
Questions for Miss Baldwin
Miss Wilson please proceed
This slide
Chair Fisher briefly highlighted the trust commitment and work on the crisis initiative
That the Trust has been engaged in for many years now
this highlights
Many of the successes that we're seeing we seeing communities step forward that are working directly with us and our partners on designing local
local response to individuals in crisis.
We also have many communities around the state
that are reaching out and engaging
and communicating that they're interested in partnering
and looking at opportunities available
to them in the communities.
And just to highlight a reminder about this initiative,
it's about a place to, someone to call.
So you have a call center, a crisis center.
Someone to respond, that's a local response of a mobile team
that can meet with people, meet them where they're at
in the community, whether that is a behavioral health,
mobile crisis response team, mobile integrated team
which might be a pair of medicine paired
with a behavior health specialist or a law enforcement
co-response type of situation.
The point is to provide other resources other than law
community. We're seeing tremendous success with the mobile response effort across the
state in many communities with more than 10,000 responses. A very high percentage of them
are resolving those situations in community, which means that individuals that are contacted
by a mobile respond in a community doesn't either require additional law enforcement
response. It doesn t require an individual to be transported to an emergency room department.
are connected to other resources. The idea is to resolve the situation, meet the need,
get the right type of intervention for those individuals as quickly as possible, and get
them connected into services so they remain in community.
Let's see.
So I think, you know, some of the highlights you see on this slide, we are certainly committed
to continuing this work.
There's lots of exciting things happening in multiple communities, and we look forward
to providing more information about that in the near future.
All right.
So, looking ahead, I want to mention a few things on the horizon that we're excited
about.
First, we are leaning into our new strategic plan, as I mentioned, you'll see that graphic
in the upper right.
So we'll be figuring out what this means, what our priorities are, and so on as we go
through that process before our budget end for May.
We also are hosting our third Improving Lives Conference in Anchorage this September.
This event which is focused on trust beneficiary populations launched in 2022 and we've held it
every other year since then. It's an opportunity to explore innovative practices, strengthen collaboration
in support of trust beneficiaries. And we had over 400 participants in 2024. So we're expecting a
big crowd this fall and uh we are working on the agenda. We'll see how that goes but I know it'll be
And then lastly, we've been partnering with the DOH on the Rural Health Transformation Project.
And for the opportunity that these funds represent for improving Alaska systems of care.
As an organization that is focused both on grant making and advancing system changes,
we think we're well suited to support this work.
We appreciate the chance to work closely with other health leaders in Alaska.
And so we'll be working closely with them in our role as an advocate, not only for leveraging the rural health funds for advancing mental health care and disability care in Alaska, but also just as a thought partner in terms of innovation and transformation, which we feel like is one of our strengths.
In the on the tail of that as I say goodbye just mentioned my team I've worked in leadership roles in many places these 17 people on each side of the house are extremely.
dedicated, well-informed, competent experts, and they are all in and dedicated to the
mental health of Alaskans.
As you all know, we have gnarly problems in the state and the other possibilities to
solve those problems as we go forward.
And this team is really, I'm so fortunate to have such a great group around me and I
am really really proud of them.
And then the Board of Trustees, as Chair Fisher mentioned, this group has been—
Open innovative collaborative and just ready to go so we are we we want to be an asset to you
All as you inform our work and we
Want you to feel free to call on us for anything that you need to know or want
To know, or you think we should be doing and I think with that I will close see if there's any more questions
Thank you for that presentation
two members of the committee have
Any questions or comments
senator Kauffman
Thank you through the chairs one. Thank You for the presentation well done, and then to the chair
With respect to senator stebman's previous comments about some comparison
It would be if we do that it would Be interesting to see the
financials
On slide 7 we have a depiction of the of The fun value the nicely annualized rate of return
And then the versus the the distributions and then some inflation adjustment
Against that so the net value of the assets after inflation and also with respect to the
distributions
This ballroom can provide that to community
Mr. Fisher, do you have any closing comments?
I kind of like to echo what our CEO, Mary Wilson, has said with regard to the collaboration
between the trust land office, the Trust Authority office and the trustees.
There's been a great amount of collaboration and cooperation as we've moved forward with
these initiatives and I think that's why we have been so productive.
And I happen to believe after a year of working with Mary Wilsen that she's probably the best
CEO hire that the trustee has ever had and we all enjoyed working there and i speak for
So, thank you very much.
Thank you.
That concludes the meeting today.
I have another meeting tomorrow at 9 a.m.
With that, we are adjourned.