Over four months after about 77% of Columbus voters in the May primary backed sending clinicians rather than police to some crises such as mental health incidents, city officials haven't completed the first step toward setting up the program.
Columbus Issue 5 committed the city to begin operating non-police crisis teams by February 2028 and making them available around-the-clock by Feb. 1, 2030. But first, the ballot measure requires the city to set up an advisory panel on alternative crisis response.
Even before voters weighed in, Mayor Andrew Ginther held a press conference in February to pledge support for shifting more 911 responses from police to clinicians and promised he would set up an advisory panel made up of "industry professionals."
Activists want residents with lived experience to be well represented on the panel.
Columbus City Council passed legislation in June that committed the city to setting up a 15-member advisory board by the end of November. The Columbus mayor and City Council would jointly appoint the board. But as of Sept. 22, the application form for those interested in being a member of the advisory board has not been finalized.
"I’m concerned we’re running out of time to be on track with everything else," Chana Wiley, co-chair of the Columbus Safety Collective, told The Dispatch. "The concern is this program won’t get stood up by 2028."
Setting up the volunteer advisory board is crucial but also just the first step, Wiley said. A city-commissioned report estimated it could cost at least $11 million annually to hire more than 70 full-time employees for civilian response units. Implementation comes as city officials debate how to balance a tight operating budget, and after Ginther in July announced the city was canceling plans to build a new Municipal Court building that voters had approved bond funding for and would instead renovate the facility.
The Columbus Safety Collective, which lobbied the city for civilian crisis response for years before turning to a ballot measure, is still meeting weekly and wants to see more progress at City Hall. For Wiley, the issue is personal. She has been lobbying City Hall around alternative response since her younger brother, 36-year-old Jaron Thomas, died in 2017, days after Columbus police responded to his call for help. The coroner's office ruled the death an accident caused by cardiac arrest and cocaine toxicity.
Wiley said while testifying at City Council's meeting on Sept. 14 that the city is at risk of falling behind Issue 5's timeline and urged council and the Ginther administration to work together.
Delays come amid tension at City Hall between the Ginther's administration and City Council. Council President Shannon Hardin is challenging Ginther in the 2027 mayoral race. Both politicians, though, have expressed support for alternative response initiatives.
Asked to respond to Wiley's concerns on Sept. 16 about the slow implementation of an advisory board, Ginther did not give a reason for the delay but told The Dispatch that his administration has done more on alternative crisis response than any other administration in the city's history.
"I'm proud of the work that we've done in working with [the Columbus Safety Collective], and we believe we can do even more in the next five to 10 years than they had even proposed in the issue that went on the ballot," Ginther said. "We're working very closely with them and making good progress and looking forward to having that in place in the near term."
Wiley agreed that Ginther's administration has done more on this topic than any other and her group appreciates that.
"We just need the sense of urgency to move at a faster pace," Wiley said.
Hardin said he convened stakeholders for a meeting in June and blamed the Ginther administration for subsequent delays. He said he is hopeful City Council and the mayor's office can jointly launch the application for the advisory board next week.
"City Council has been fighting to expand alternative crisis response since 2021 while the [Ginther] Administration has delayed and dragged its feet on the issue for years," Hardin said. "So, their failure to prioritize this now is nothing new. Issue 5 is about ensuring residents get the specialized responses they deserve when mental health, substance abuse, or homelessness crises arise and avoid asking our police to be first responders to every social ill."
Patrick Higgins, senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Ohio and a member of the Columbus Safety Collective, said setting up the board by the end of November will be tight, but it is critical to prepare for 2028 implementation.
"We’re so eager to see movement on this because it’s our neighbors' lives who are waiting for action from the city to stand up what voters endorsed enthusiastically," Higgins said.
Alternative crisis funding question looms
Even as the city works toward the voter-mandated program, the city is debating how to fund alternative crisis response.
At City Council's meeting on Sept. 14, council tabled an ordinance brought by the Ginther administration to appropriate $1 million for the city's existing Mobile Crisis Response pilot program, which includes clinicians and police officers. The Ginther administration is seeking $1 million from the Income Tax Set Aside subfund for Columbus Public Health's crisis response activity.
Whether it is sustainable for the Ginther administration to tap into the ITSA subfund, which is meant for capital expenses, is being hotly debated at City Hall. Hardin has accused Ginther of robbing the capital budget to cover payroll. The Ginther administration says the city remains on solid financial footing and using ITSA for eligible expenses is a fiscally sound tool for balancing the operating budget, although they are working toward not relying on it in the future.
Councilmember Melissa Green, who chairs the Health, Human Services & Equity Committee, moved to refer the ordinance back to committee and cited a lack of detail in the legislation and concerns regarding the funding source's sustainability. Green said council is committed to supporting alternative crisis response efforts but questioned the use of ITSA dollars.
"We want to make sure though that we have a sustainable revenue stream that is funding this work so that it can not just sustain it in its current form but help it grow in the future," Green said.
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus voters OK'd alternative to police. Backers say it's stalled | Exclusive
