NYAPRS Note: In a surprising move by the legislature this week, a bill passed the Senate and will likely clear the Assembly that would halt any closures of state-operated psychiatric facilities and developmental centers until 2017. We continue to work with disability advocates and Assemblymembers to ensure that the right to live of all individuals to live in the community will be upheld in this legislative session. If the bill passes the Assembly today, we will work through the Governor’s office to advocate for its’ veto.
Lawmakers Seek Delay in Downsizing Facilities for Mentally Ill, Disabled
Times Union; Rick Karlin, 6/18/2014
Lawmakers have launched a last-minute push for a three-year delay of closures and downsizings at more than a dozen state-run psychiatric hospitals and centers for the disabled, including the O.D. Heck facility in Niskayuna.
The bills, sponsored by Sen. Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, and Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell, would delay the reductions until April 2017.
It comes as the Cuomo administration is downsizing the state’s expansive system of facilities run by the Office of Mental Health and Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.
The facilities are major employers in some small and economically hard-pressed upstate communities, but supporters also say that closing these facilities too soon would leave a void for people who depend on them.
The bill, which passed in the Senate on Tuesday, is one of several measures that tend to crop up late in the legislative session, which ends this week.
Libous was meeting with the Cuomo administration on the matter late Wednesday.
The planned closures have drawn fire from unions that represent workers there, including the Civil Service Employees Association and Public Employees Federation.
And the legislation reiterates contentions that the closures may take place before some local communities have put in place support systems, often through nonprofit agencies, to care for those who need psychiatric or disability-related help.
“The plan will overburden hospital emergency rooms, inundate local correctional facilities with many new inmates and increase local government expenditures for mental health services,” reads part of the legislation.
It also would create a “Thruway mental health system” because many rural New Yorkers, especially those in the North Country and Southern Tier, could have to commute to consolidated centers in Syracuse and Utica.
Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, which represents some nonprofit, community-based centers, said there already have been agreements about the planned closures which would shift some responsibility from the state to local organizations.
It’s unclear how the measure would fare if it clears the Assembly and is sent to the governor.
A veto could rile PEF and CSEA members, although those unions have expressed unhappiness with the governor over their most recent labor contracts, which included several years without raises.
Moratorium on Closing State’s Psychiatric centers backed in Legislature
Politics on the Hudson; Joseph Spector, 6/18/2014
The state Legislature is expected to send a bill to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk that would put a three-year moratorium on closing four state institutions for the disabled and mentally ill.
The measure, called the Freeze Unsafe State Closures Act, passed the state Senate on Tuesday and is expected to be approved by the Assembly before the legislative session ends this week, lawmakers said.
The bill is sponsored by Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo and Sen. Thomas Libous, who are Binghamton legislators opposed to the planned closure of the Broome Development Center. The center is expected to close in 2016, and opponents said it would lead to the displacement of hundreds of people in need.
“What this bill is simply trying to do is to slow up the process,” Lupardo said. “We’re not in any way trying to minimize the importance of transiting people, who are appropriate, into community settings.”
Earlier this year, the state quietly delayed plans to close some psychiatric centers, including the one in Rochester, and create regional centers.
The state last year said it would close four centers for people with developmental disabilities—including two in New York City and one in Schenectady—as a way to comply with state and federal mandates to provide services to residents in more community-based settings.
As of last year, the Broome Developmental Center had 692 full-time equivalent positions and served 166 people. State officials have stressed that no layoffs would come from the closures; workers would be relocated.
The state Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services has raised concerns about the bill—which would postpone closures of facilities overseen by state offices of Mental Health and People with Developmental Disabilities until April 1, 2017.
“This would put New York at legal risk for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision and needlessly keep people with disabilities in institutions that are far more costly to taxpayers,” the group said in an email to supporters today.