When someone is experiencing a mental-health crisis, the presence of a trained behavioral-health professional alongside law enforcement can mean the difference between treatment and incarceration, de-escalation and confrontation—even life and death.
That is why Putnam County should find a way to preserve its Co-Responder Team.
The program began in 2024 with the help of a $400,000 federal Department of Justice COPS grant. It paired law enforcement with mental-health and social-services professionals, giving deputies access to specialized assistance when responding to people in crisis.
But when the federal grant expired on June 30, 2026, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office ended its participation.
Sheriff Brian Hess raised legitimate concerns. The annual cost of assigning a full-time deputy was estimated at approximately $250,000. He also questioned the program’s utilization, saying the dedicated deputy responded to only about 3 percent of mental-health-related calls. In addition, the Sheriff cited the absence of a formal memorandum of understanding and an inconsistent command structure among the agencies involved.
Those concerns demand correction—not abandonment.
If the team was responding to too few calls, county officials should determine why. Was it unavailable when needed? Were dispatchers failing to activate it? Were the Sheriff’s Office and Department of Social Services using different definitions or tracking systems?
The county’s Department of Social Services and Mental Health disputes the Sheriff’s utilization figures. That disagreement alone should prompt a transparent review of the data. Putnam County should know exactly how many crises the team handled, what outcomes it achieved and whether its presence reduced arrests, hospitalizations, injuries or repeat calls.
The lack of a formal agreement is also fixable. County government routinely creates interagency agreements defining authority, responsibilities, staffing and accountability. A clear memorandum of understanding and unified command protocol should have been in place from the beginning. Their absence is an argument for strengthening the program, not eliminating it.
Legislator Nancy Montgomery and others have expressed a willingness to explore alternative funding or intermunicipal agreements. That discussion should move forward immediately.
The answer may not be to preserve the program in precisely its original form. Putnam County could consider an on-call model, cross-train multiple deputies, share resources with neighboring municipalities or pursue state and private funding. It could also establish performance standards ensuring that the team is available when and where it is most needed.
But allowing the program to simply disappear because a federal grant expired would be shortsighted.
Mental-health crises will continue. Deputies will still be called to homes where families are overwhelmed, people are frightened and circumstances can escalate quickly. Law-enforcement officers perform an extraordinarily difficult job, but they should not be expected to serve simultaneously as police officers, social workers, therapists and psychiatric clinicians.
Co-responder programs recognize that reality. They give law enforcement another tool and provide people in crisis with a better opportunity to receive appropriate care.
Temporary federal funding should never become an excuse for local government to avoid long-term planning. If Putnam County believed this program was important enough to launch, it should now determine what worked, repair what did not and build a sustainable version that taxpayers can support.
This is not a choice between compassion and fiscal responsibility. A well-designed Co-Responder Team can serve both by reducing unnecessary arrests, emergency-room visits, repeated calls and the enormous human and financial costs of untreated mental illness.
Putnam County should bring everyone back to the table—the Sheriff’s Office, mental-health officials, legislators, municipal police departments and community providers—and find a responsible path forward.
The grant may have expired.
Putnam County’s obligation to respond effectively to people in crisis did not.
The Valley Viewpoint 