Glass hopeful for behavioral health partnership

By JEFF MORRIS 

In a conversation with The Recorder, Bedford Central Superintendent Robert Glass revealed he is in continuing talks with Northwell Health that he thinks will result in a behavioral health partnership soon being approved.

Glass was asked about specific sections of the agreement that the district had been expected to sign in order to authorize a partnership through Northern Westchester/Putnam BOCES with Northwell, that would provide district students with unfettered access to the Behavioral Health Center in Mount Kisco.

Though the idea of a partnership had been approved by the board when it was first included in budget discussions earlier this year, and the same contract had already been agreed to by multiple other districts, the actual contract ran into trouble with the BCSD board when it was introduced to them in October.

The contents of the contract have not been made public, but it was obtained via a FOIL request and made available to The Recorder through a third party. A Q&A document that was distributed to the board Oct. 8 was similarly shared with The Recorder.

Two key portions of the contract illustrate where questions arose. The June 11, 2025, document is referred to as a “service agreement,” between “Long Island Jewish Medical Center through its Cohen Children’s Medical Center, a member of Northwell Health, Inc.,” and Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES. In Section IV, under Insurance, 4.3 states, “LIJ agrees to indemnify BOCES and the Participating School Districts for applicable deductibles and self-insured retentions.” Similarly, under 4.5, it again makes reference to “BOCES and the Participating School Districts.”

However, in the next section, 4.6, “Indemnification,” the verbiage is different: “Except to the extent of BOCES’ or its officers, members of the Board, agents or employees negligence or willful misconduct and to the fullest extent permitted by law, LIJ agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless BOCES, its officers, members of the Board, agents or employees against all claims, demands, actions, lawsuits, costs, damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, judgments, fines and amounts, arising from any negligent act or omission of LIJ, its officers, agents or employees in connection with the performance of services pursuant to this Agreement.” Unlike the previous section, nowhere in that passage does it mention “Participating School Districts.”

In the Q&A document that the board saw on Oct. 8, Northwell had been asked, “Does the indemnification that extends to Participating School Districts provide the same level of protection as what BOCES receives directly?” The answer provided was, “Based on the existing agreement, any indemnification applicable to BOCES also extends to the Participating School Districts, because BOCES signed the service agreement on their behalf. Therefore, the Participating School Districts are covered by the indemnification provisions. This means that the same protections afforded to BOCES under the agreement apply equally to the member districts involved in the services.”

While that answer seems clear enough, it begs the question of why the language under Indemnification wasn’t identical to the earlier passage that specifically referred to Participating School Districts. That question was the crux of objections that were raised by trustee Steven Matlin and then echoed by others.

“I believe there are two different attorneys,” said Glass. “You have what was in the BOCES agreement, which was not negotiated by the people we were speaking to. And then you had the people we were speaking to saying, ‘Yeah, you’re good’— but we didn’t have anything in writing. Where we are right now is, we met with them again, and we’re trying to get this all clarified in writing. I’m pretty hopeful we’re going to get there, because I think that’s their intention: to indemnify. But the language is not clear; we need that clarified.”

Glass said in subsequent meetings with Northwell, they maintained that “they see us as being indemnified, and I think they’re working on putting that in writing for us.” He said the district needs something that’s legal, “more than just what they wrote in an email that says ‘you’re fine.”’ Part of the complication, he said, is that it’s an agreement with BOCES, that neither the district or Northwell can modify unilaterally. “I think that’s a process they’re going through right now,” said Glass, “to work with BOCES to make some kind of an addendum or change to the agreement that makes it clear, and then we’ll all be good, I’m hoping — not just Bedford, but all the other districts, if they have questions.”

A spokesperson for Northwell Health confirmed this, telling The Recorder, “We’re currently working with the school district on a solution that works for both sides and are optimistic that we will come to a resolution.”

Glass was asked why the documents had not been shared with the public before the board meeting, or the specific passages that were a problem identified. “You typically wouldn’t,” said Glass. “At a board level, you’re talking a little more general. I could have given a presentation on the whole Q&A document, but that’s Monday morning quarterbacking. At the time, we’d been talking about this since approving the budget in the spring. To me it was a done deal.”

Glass added, “We could always make the documents available. That’s not a problem. It’s just that the agreement is really between Northwell and BOCES. I would normally just sign any cross contract with BOCES, but because this was a high-profile thing with fairly big dollars, we went for the extra level of transparency.” That was when Matlin raised the questions about indemnification.

“The long and the short of it is, until I get that agreement, I don’t really know if I’m indemnified,” Glass said. “Until I get that document that I’m waiting for, and will hopefully get any day, where Northwell and BOCES do an addendum that really clarifies it, I don’t think I would necessarily be assured that we are indemnified, because of that language [in 4.6] that looks like it was designed on purpose to not indemnify us.”

“I take them at their word,” noted Glass, “and I believe that they’re going to straighten all this out in short order; that they intended to indemnify us and it was just a badly written document. We’re just the first people that I know of that have raised an issue with it.”

Glass conceded that this information could have been better communicated to the public. “If I had to do it all over, I probably would have done another presentation from ‘soup to nuts,”’ he said. There was confusion about whether everyone was able to access services even without a partnership; most people, he said, were not aware there were two different practices operating out of the same office. Glass said even he was not aware of that until he visited the facility six weeks ago. “That’s understandable,” he said. “They were building it while they were flying, trying to get it off the ground quick and make it viable.”

A quick turnaround between board meetings, during which answers to the board’s questions were returned by Northwell, probably added to the confusion, said Glass. He said getting the answer took about a week, “and I gave them the document with the answers the day of the meeting, just so they could vote. I wasn’t thinking the public needed to see them. I think that probably caused more confusion; people probably thought we were hiding things, which is just nonsense, but I understand why they thought that way. I was just trying to give board members information they asked for, and get things rolling.”

Glass said he was subsequently stunned when the discrepancy between what they had been told about everything being “fine,” and the actual contract language, became obvious — and that’s why the document needs clarification. “I do believe they intend to indemnify us,” he repeated. “I do believe it’s all going to be fine, and I intend to take it to a vote just as soon as I get that document.”