Clarinda may still have to pay a hefty price to keep its mental health institute open.
A reduction of nearly $1 million in funding and elimination of 15 geropsychiatric beds and 19 jobs at the Clarinda Mental Health Institute are called for in a budget recommendation presented Thursday to the Legislature’s Health and Human Services appropriations subcommittee.
State Rep. Richard Anders, R-Clarinda, said he was concerned about the potential loss of jobs that would result from the proposal.
“We spent so much time fighting the language to close the entire MHI, but I was still concerned there may be a job reduction,” Anderson said. “This confirmed those suspicions.
For the past month, Anderson had worked with a delegation of Clarinda officials fighting an amendment to the government reorganization bill that had called for closing the Clarinda institute.
Although those efforts appear to have been successful, Jason Bridie said he and other members of the Clarinda delegation have shared Anderson’s suspicions that another threat to the institute would arise during the legislative session.
“We had a feeling something was coming, but we were not sure what it was or how it was going to work,” Bridie said.
The proposed cuts to the institute are part of an overall plan that would reduce funding for the four state institutes by $4,541,460 and result in the elimination of 117 jobs.
“They are spreading the pain around,” Bridie said.
The specific portion of the budget dealing with the Clarinda institute outlines a $997,610 shortfall in funding for fiscal year 2011 compared to 2010, which would affect 19 jobs at the institute.
The recommendation also calls for closing one of the two geropsychiatric wards at the Clarinda institute.
The geropsychiatric program offers long-term psychiatric care for 35 patients and is licensed at the same level as a nursing home. It is the only such program in Iowa and has a waiting list of patients.
Of the 35 beds available in the program, 15 are designated for bedfast patients and 20 for ambulatory patients. The Department of Human Services proposal would do away with the 15-bed ward, leaving the 20-bed geropsychiatric ward and the adult psychiatric program at the institute in place.
“We currently house the most difficult patients in that category,” Bridie said. “So if they reduce the number of beds that are available, where are those people going to go? That is really a public policy question.”
Although Clarinda would certainly feel the impact of the proposed budget cuts, the Clarinda institute fared well compared with the state institutes in Cherokee, Independence and Mount Pleasant.
Based on the budget proposal, the institute at Independence would take the greatest hit with the loss of $1,928,173 in funding and the elimination of 55 jobs.
The Independence institute could also see its locked adult psychiatric program reduced by 20 beds as a result of the jobs cut at the facility. This would leave the institute with one locked co-ed ward of 20 beds.
The Cherokee Mental Health Institute faces a $1,213,607 reduction in funding and the elimination of 32 jobs. The proposal also calls for closing a 22-bed ward in the institute’s unlocked co-ed adult psychiatric program and a 12-bed ward in its locked co-ed child and adolescent psychiatric program.
The Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute would take the smallest hit of the four institutes, with the loss of $402,070 in funding and the elimination of 10 jobs. The institute would also see its adult psychiatric program reduced by four beds and its substance abuse program reduced by 20 beds.
The Health and Human Services appropriations subcommittee will debate the overall human services budget next week.
Anderson said this allows area residents an opportunity to lobby the members of the subcommittee about the importance of the geropsychiatric program at the Clarinda institute and the public and private partnership that exists at the Clarinda Treatment Complex, which also includes the Clarinda Correctional Facility and the Clarinda Academy.
However, Anderson and Bridie agreed, given the economic condition of the state, it will be much harder to fight this proposed budget cut than it was to inform legislators about the value of keeping the Clarinda institute in operation.
“We felt like we saved the MHI initially,” Bridie said. “But at this point, the state’s budget is in such dire straits that the decisions being made sometimes go beyond thoughtful debate. They literally have to make cuts wherever they can find them.”
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