June 12, 2026 — At the March 2025 PEF Executive Board meeting, members voted unanimously to consider a vote of no-confidence against Office of Mental Health (OMH) Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan. Due in part to that vote, OMH, PEF and other unions began regular meetings to find solutions to issues surrounding workplace safety.
“They heard us very loudly and immediately after that we met with Commissioner Sullivan and we have met with her team every Monday since,” PEF President Wayne Spence said to the executive board in June 2025.
PEF Vice President Darlene Williams, a long-time OMH employee in Staten Island, said she felt at the time that things were moving forward.
“We weren’t divided into labor and management, but united as professionals who care deeply about people,” VP Williams said last year. “I felt like the system was working the way it was supposed to, with respect, collaboration, and shared accountability.”
Now, a year later, those talks have led to direct action to keep OMH employees safe.
Previously, OMH did not allow staff to search the living quarters of patients in transitional residences, even if there was reasonable suspicion of dangerous contraband. PEF leaders flagged that as a dangerous problem and called for more targeted searches.
After lengthy discussions, a new policy was implemented in May 2026 pertaining to residential searches.
The Reasonable Suspicion policy backed by PEF establishes what items are restricted and illegal, including drugs, cigarettes, nicotine products, cannabis, alcohol, firearms, electric stun guns, knives, knuckles, and dozens of other weapons and paraphernalia. The policy also establishes several standards for when a search should be implemented and the terms of what constitutes “Reasonable Suspicion,” such as direct observation, odors, suspicious and observable behaviors, and other factors.
Almost as soon as the policy was implemented in May, it worked.
At the Capital District Psychiatric Center in Albany, a search was conducted based on a resident’s history of hiding contraband. During that search, security staff recovered 13 knives of varying shapes and sizes. They were confiscated without issues or injuries, and the resident was removed from the premises.
“At quick glance, I know this sounds like a bad thing,” said PEF Field Representative Christopher Moreau. “None of us wants to hear that there’s 13 knives in transitional housing. However, this room was only searched under the newly negotiated procedural language that PEF led the charge on.”
VP Williams agreed.
“While I am horrified that these knives were on the premise, I am so proud of the work we’ve done to ensure that this policy is not just talk. It’s action,” she said. “If it were not for PEF’s persistence, and even our action last year to push us to the table, the staff would not have been able to search this individual’s room. This could have been a much scarier, or even deadly situation.”