AI Department, Opioid Funds on County Agenda

Grand Traverse County commissioners will consider a proposal Wednesday to move ahead with establishing a county Center of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence – spending $118,000 in the first year to hire a full-time employee and invest in technology, training, and security and compliance tools. Commissioners will also hear an update on plans to distribute the county’s opioid settlement funds.

Center of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence
The county’s IT department is recommending establishing a Center of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence (CoE) to “provide governance, security oversight, and documented processes for AI adoption across Grand Traverse County,” according to a proposal from IT Director Cliff DuPuy.

DuPuy will seek feedback from commissioners at their Wednesday study session on investing $118,000 in fiscal year 2027 for the CoE, which will cover one full-time employee at an estimated salary of $75,000 along with technology tools and training for staff. DuPuy outlined a “four-pillar approach” to ensure Grand Traverse County is prepared for the rapid evolution of AI technology. Those pillars include governance, expertise, innovation, and security.

Governance involves having “documented policies” and “ethical training” for employees on using AI, DuPuy wrote. He shared a proposed policy for county employees that would guide how they are allowed to use AI technologies. The second pillar, expertise, includes training employees on key issues like “AI safety, hallucination detection, and security protocols” to build internal AI capabilities, according to DuPuy.

Innovation entails identifying and prioritizing “high-impact AI use cases across departments while maintaining rigorous testing and human oversight.” An early step would include completing an AI inventory and needs assessment across county departments and identifying a handful of pilot projects that could be implemented featuring the technology. The last pillar, security, includes ensuring the county has robust data protection, privacy compliance, and risk management. That includes protecting sensitive “911, court, health, and law enforcement data,” DuPuy wrote. His proposal also calls for establishing a steering committee to provide oversight for the CoE.

The county faces significant risks by not getting ahead of AI and ensuring employees are all following the same protocols, according to the IT director. Companies have been found legally liable for AI mistakes, DuPuy said, and can erode public trust when they misuse AI, make decisions based on hallucinated information, or suffer massive data breaches. Establishing clear policies can ensure, for example, that humans are validating AI work when it’s being used for any customer-facing outputs, DuPuy wrote.

Without documented AI processes, Grand Traverse County would lack consistency across departments and adequate defense in a lawsuit, he said. In addition to shoring up legal protections, having the CoE will provide audit compliance trails, standardized verification processes, and documented security protocols, he wrote. DuPuy estimated the county would see a return on its investment in 18-24 months through “efficiency gains,” but said that “more critically, avoiding a single major security incident or legal liability case justifies the entire investment.”

“The question is not whether we need AI governance – recent events answer that definitively,” he wrote. “The question is whether we act now, while we're ahead, or wait until we're explaining to taxpayers why we didn't.”

Opioid Funds
Commissioners will hear an update Wednesday from the Grand Traverse County Health Department on plans to distribute the county’s opioid settlement funds.

Commissioners approved an approach last August for distributing funds using a committee called the Opioid Settlement Spending Advisory Committee (OSSAC). That group will have representation from the commission, Health Department, Sheriff’s Office, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office or Diversion/Recovery, plus three community members from fields like public or behavioral health, harm reduction, and social services. The committee, which is being finalized now and is expected to meet for the first time in March, will review proposals from community organizations for funding and provide recommendations to commissioners for approval.

The county has approximately $1.9 million to distribute now and is expected to receive up to $6.4 million by 2040. The Health Department will assist the committee by pre-screening proposals to provide a “manageable number” to review given expected high demand for funds, staff said in a memo. It will also complee a community assessment and gap analysis to inform recommendations. The OSSAC will follow core values when considering proposals that include “spend to save lives,” “use evidence-based guides to drive spending,” “focus on class inequities,” “develop a fair and transparent process for determining fund allocation,” and “invest in youth prevention.”