.
Job losses, transfers to hit Fulton State Hospital
http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=1914#post1914
By DON NORFLEET
The Fulton Sun
Posted: Tuesday, Apr 06, 2010 - 10:20:18 am CDT
http://www.fultonsun.com/articles/20.../298news01.txt
http://www.fultonsun.com/articles/20.../298news01.prt
As part of a statewide realignment of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, more than 200 employees of Fulton State Hospital learned early Monday many of them will be shifted to other positions or lose their jobs during the next two years.
A tentative Department of Mental Health plan calls for closing current mental health units at the Guhleman Forensic Center in Fulton and three units at the Hearnes Forensic Center during the next two years.
The plan is designed to shift all acute mental health care provided from the state to private agencies, which can receive federal Medicaid reimbursement for the costs.
The Fulton job losses and transfers are scheduled to begin in September and be completed during the next two years. At the end of two years there will be a reduction or transfer of 211 full-time jobs at the two mental health units in Fulton.
The first step in Fulton will be three wards of the Guhleman Forensic Center in Fulton will be closed and 85 patients there will be moved to the Southeast Missouri Mental Center in Farmington. This will mean a reduction or transfer of 104 employees now working in the unit.
In January of 2011, a high-security satellite Sexual Offender Rehabilitation Treatment Service program will be created at Fulton State Hospital to handle the overflow from a similar unit at Farmington. This will create some jobs in Fulton and enable current employees to transfer to the new unit. The sexual offender program has been growing at a rate of about 17 offenders a year, an agency spokesman said.
The state had planned to construct a new $77 million facility at Farmington for sexual offenders but now that building plan has been dropped.
Briefings of Fulton State Hospital employees began Monday morning on a realignment of the Department of Mental Health forced in part by state budget cuts caused by declining state revenue.
Bob Bax, a spokesman for the Department of Mental Health, said the reconfiguration of the Department of Mental Health affects many of the department's facilities statewide and includes shifting of patients throughout the state.
Bax said many of the reductions will come not from job losses but through not filling open positions and transfers to other jobs.
If approved as presented, Bax said the department's plan affecting Fulton employees and other psychiatric employees throughout the state would save from $7 million to $10 million a year.
Bax said Gov. Jay Nixon asked the Department of Mental Health and other state agencies to develop plans to reduce the size of state government and present them to the Missouri General Assembly. "Overall, the state has to cut about $500 million from next year's budget," Bax said.
Bax said at this point the department wants to make all employees aware of planned cutbacks.
"When the legislature completes its budget in a few weeks, we will have a better idea about how much of this will go into effect. Many things in the plan depend upon other things happening first," Bax said.
The plan still includes a request by the department for a new 300-bed maximum and intermediate security facility to be built at the Fulton Sate Hospital. It would be financed through appropriation-backed revenue bonds issued in 2013 or 2014 to replace the Biggs Forensic Center, a maximum security unit that houses patients prosecuted for murder or other violent crimes and have been found not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease.
A copy of the department's plan for a statewide downsizing of the state operated inpatient psychiatric system that was distributed to employees Monday has been obtained by The Fulton Sun.
The first step in the downsizing of the state-operated psychiatric system begins in July of this year when 20 voluntary patients will be moved to intensive community services with no staff layoffs.
The next major step is the movement of 85 patients from Fulton to Farmington and the loss or transfer of 104 jobs in Fulton.
Then in January of 2011, the Sexual Offender Unit will be established in Fulton, creating or transferring 34 full-time jobs in Fulton.
In June of 2011 the two remaining units at Guhleman Forensic Center and the three units of the Hearnes Forensic Center will be closed and 108 patients will be moved to state mental health facilities in St. Louis and Kansas City.
In October of 2012 or 2013, the department will ask for construction of a 300-bed high security psychiatric facility at Fulton State Hospital financed by state revenue bonds.
Overall, the Department of Mental Health anticipates the two-year plan will have an overall reduction of 300 full-time state mental health employee jobs through the downsizing process. But far fewer employees will lose their jobs.
"Job reductions will be modest," the report to employees states "due to moving patients from Fulton State Hospital to St. Louis and Farmington. Attrition and transfer to other state positions will be used to avoid as many layoffs as possible. A majority of the full-time job reductions will occur at the Fulton State Hospital during the two-year conversion period, but full-time jobs at the Fulton State Hospital will gradually return to current levels over the next 10 years as the Sexual Offender Rehabilitation Treatment Services (SORTS) satellite program expands."
The statement to employees also notes the state has been trying to end or transfer to private agencies all acute psychiatric inpatient care now provided at Hearnes and Guhleman units "because federal regulations prohibit Medicaid reimbursement to state psychiatric hospitals for otherwise eligible persons between the ages of 22 through 64. Private community hospitals that provide both medical and behavior inpatient services are not subject to these limitations. To partially address the loss of state-operated acute inpatient beds, the Department of Mental Health will request (spending) up to $5 million of the savings for community-based crisis services in the two affected areas."
Comment