Several times a month, Tom Dean drives south from Bellevue toward the northwestern face of Mt. Rainier, until he reaches the small town of Buckley, with a population just shy of 4,500. He travels there to see his son, Patrick, who lives at the Rainier School, a residential care facility for 370 people with developmental disabilities. Patrick, who's 48, has lived at Rainier School since he was 9, when Tom and his wife, aware they could no longer care for him at home, moved their young son there.
Due to a curvature of the spine, Tom says Patrick has difficulty walking -- a skill he didn't master until roughly his eighth birthday -- his slow gait aided by special shoes. These days, Patrick can dress himself, but brushing his teeth and shaving lay beyond his abilities. When he's around, Tom does the shaving for him. At other times, the Rainier School staff obliges, as part of the ordered routine and low-stress environment Patrick requires in a place that he considers his home. "Everybody knows everybody else," Tom says, adding, "At Rainier School, he's happy."
Except when Patrick's daily routine changes at the state-run residential care facility, as happened recently. During a 10-month span the Department of Social and Health Services let go of nearly 100 part- and full-time employees due to budget cuts. Staffing configurations had to be altered. And, disturbed by the reorganization, Patrick, according to Tom, became hard to handle. "It caused some trouble," Tom, who serves as president of Friends of Rainier, recalls, leaving out the specifics.
But another change to Patrick's ordered routine may lie in his future, again precipitated by budgetary belt-tightening: the state has proposed downsizing and eventually closing Rainier School by 2014. And with that possibility, residents of both the Rainier School, and the tiny town of Buckley where it sits, could find that a weak economic reality may usher in times of woe.
With Washington facing a $2.6 billion deficit, Gov. Chris Gregoire has sought ways to bring the state's books in line. As a partial solution, Gregoire revealed, in her Jan. 12 budget, plans to close part or all of 10 institutions operated by the state. Five would be correctional facilities (Pine Lodge, Larch Corrections Center, Autanum View and a unit each at Walla Walla and McNeil Island); three juvenile rehabilitation centers (Naselle Youth Camp, Maple Lane and Green Hill Schools); and two residential health center (RHC) facilities. The first RHC slated for closure would be the Frances Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton, with slightly more than 50 residents who live with autism and/or developmental disabilities, scheduled for full closure by 2011.
The other would be Rainier School, which would begin downsizing in 2011, with the facility to be shut down in 2014. Yet the impact of closing Rainier School, some state elected officials assert, would upend the lives of the facility's residents, along with devastating the economic and communal livelihood of Buckley.
Pat Johnson, mayor of Buckley, estimates the shuttering of Rainier School would result in the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs -- the facility, the town's largest employer, maintains a staff of approximately 950 people -- and as many as 400 homes. "Stop and think about it," Johnson says. "Four hundred people are going to lose their homes." Buckley and Rainier School share a water system, Johnson says, and jointly own water treatment plants. The 370 residents of the facility are tallied as part of Buckley's census rolls -- they account for roughly 8 percent of the population -- and lower population totals mean a reduction in the tax base. That amounts to less money in the town's general fund. Johnson predicts the town's budget could suffer a "$2 million hit."
But the facility also represents a community within the community of Buckley, says Johnson, one comprised of those who are medically fragile. Since many Rainier School residents may not realize the future fate of the facility, and most can't vote, she believes that someone must speak up for them. "It's our responsibility as government officials to take care of our most vulnerable citizens," says Johnson.
Sen. Pam Roach (R-Auburn) agrees. Sen. Roach says that she's called meetings with state legislators, Mayor Johnson and the Friends of Rainier, to craft a new vision to save the facility, one that involves continued education for residents over 21, public outreach, better utilization of service and infrastructure, including 100,000 square feet of storage beneath the facility, and autism research. (It's unclear whether Sen. Roach helped to pen the vision statement before or after being banned from the Republican Caucus on Jan. 20, for allegedly mistreating staff.) Imagining new ways to keep the facility open, she believes, is paramount. "In times of budget [reductions]," Sen. Roach says, "we don't go to those who can't fend for themselves and cut them first."
Last year, the State Legislature passed House Bill 1244, which mandated a study to determine the efficacy of institutional closures. While the firm Murray and Associates took the lead on the entire feasibility study, a second firm, Davis Deshaies LLC, looked at the impact of closing RHCs. The state maintains a total of five RHCs: Frances Haddon Morgan Center, Rainier School, Fircrest School, Yakima Valley School and Lakeland Village.
At a Jan. 13 Senate Ways and Means Committee work session, Norm Davis of Davis Deshaies informed the committee that Washington's RHCs are expensive to operate -- on average, roughly $500 per resident per day. Yet most families with a relative in an RHC did not want the facility closed and believed the relative shouldn't be moved. "This is not a divided community," Davis said.
In its analysis, his firm recommended the state could reduce 250 beds -- slightly more than a quarter of the total it maintains -- in all its facilities by 2013. By 2019, he continued, all but a few beds would be left over at three remaining facilities. The closures, the study notes, would initially cost $1.8 million more than is already budgeted for in fiscal year 2010; by 2013, however, expenditures would break even. From then on, more than $4.3 million would be saved each year.
Yet the former residents would need to be relocated. The study recommended that they be reabsorbed into communities across the state, placed in a network of state-operated living assistance facilities. The study advises that this network would require "substantial refinancing and increased capacity" to meet the needs of those moved out of RCFs. The governor, according to her Office of Financial Management, agreed that communities needed increased capacity to handle residents displaced by closures. No plan to increase capacity was offered.
On Jan. 27, numerous state senators introduced a new bill, SB 6780, which states a "person with developmental disability may not be moved from an institutional to a community setting until sufficient services and support arrangements are authorized and funded." The bill also asks that by Nov. 1, DSHS provide "timelines and estimated costs" to ensure such community settings exist. The bill will have an 8 a.m. public hearing in the Senate Committee on Health & Long-Term Care on Wednesday, Feb. 3. To have a life, the bill must make it out of committee by Friday, Feb. 5.
But for Tom Dean, moving Patrick to a new facility in a different community, away from the place he's lived for almost four decades, won't help his son. A new residence may not have all the services Patrick requires, including active treatment. The disruption to his schedule, he says, would only cause more outbursts and adversely affect his health.
And he points out that, according to the study conducted by Davis Deshaies, downsizing Rainier School for closure wouldn't amount to immediate cost savings. Instead, he believes, closing it would wipe out a community of some 400 severely handicapped residents, which would amount to a much higher cost, for Patrick and others, not to mention the people of Buckley. He sees only one solution: "The answer," he says, "is keeping it like it is." n