Lawmakers skeptical over closing mental health facilities

DES MOINES - Lawmakers' reactions to a proposal to phase out services at the Mount Pleasant and Clarinda mental health institutions ranged from skepticism to opposition as they listened Thursday to an explanation from the Department of Human Services.

Gov. Terry Branstad's proposed budget does not include money to continue services for the mentally ill beyond July 1 at those facilities in favor of implementing a mental health redesign that envisions working with community providers and the two accredited mental health institutions in Cherokee and Independence.

However, members of the Legislature's Health and Human Service Appropriations Subcommittee questioned the savings as well as the efficacy of the governor's plan.

'You paint a rosy picture of more services,” Sen. Joe Bolkcom,” D-Iowa City, told Rick Shults of the DHS. 'But we're cutting the budget to pay (Branstad's) historic property tax cut that goes to out-of-state corporations. He's asking us to make some really awful decisions in order to ship all this money to companies that don't have a home office in this state.”

Bolkcom, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, favored a commercial property tax cut that targeted Iowa-owned business rather than the broader plan the Legislature adopted in 2013.

The politics of the budget aside, HHS Co-Chairman Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, had little positive to say about the plan to close the 154-year-old mental health institute in his community that currently serves 47 patients and has 83 full-time employees with a projected fiscal 2016 budget cost of $6.9 million.

He questioned why the department would close the two facilities with the lowest daily cost of operation.

He reminded the department that the state located a prison at Clarinda, in part, because of the mental health institution and the opportunity for cost-sharing.

He recalled being told that co-locating facilities in Clarinda would create 'a synergistic center for all of southwest Iowa. It was going to be the model. And now you're going to close it.”

The Clarinda facility has 24 patients and 76 full-time employees, with a projected operations cost of $8.6 million in fiscal 2016, a DHS spokeswoman said earlier this month.

Rep. John Forbes, D-Urbandale, was concerned about the human cost to the patients and their families.

'These patients need their families nearby to get through difficult times,” he said. 'We all love to save money, but we need to look at what impact his will have on the people of Iowa.”