An issue that has been in the news a lot is the demise of New River Behavioral HealthCare. The service had been in business 45 years, treating people with mental health and substance abuse problems. A lot of the loose ends are tied up, now. One outstanding issue is former employee demands “related to unused vacation time and other expenses that were not paid to the employees when they were laid off.”

The suit, filed in April against New River Service Authority, its five member counties and the five board members, alleges a variety of offenses, including various types of fraud, negligence, conspiracy and breach of contract.

“Defendants operated New River Service Authority in the red year after year, bleeding money nonstop as defendants buried their collective heads in the sand, until the mismanaged enterprise withered and finally . . . staggered to its knees and met an untimely death,” the complaint states.

And thus we see another instance of management in over its head. The MBA philosophy of dreaming and talking big and watching everything fall magically in place somehow isn’t working here. But then, maybe management could be more manageable if regulators had a greater interest in letting managers manage with brain power rather than compliance and documentation.