Dutchess Gets Funding For Mental Health Programs
By Craig Wolf Poughkeepsie Journal January 17, 2012
The state has granted an annual $1.5 million to Dutchess County to help it cope with the impacts of the planned closing of Hudson River Psychiatric Center in Poughkeepsie.
County Executive Marc Molinaro announced Monday that the county would accept the funding to “support programs focused on decreasing and diverting inpatient admissions, facilitating discharges and strengthening the continuum of services for people impacted by the closure of Hudson River Psychiatric Center.”
“These services will have far-reaching impacts across multiple health, human services and public safety systems in our county to help improve the quality of life for our residents and reduce the future fiscal burden on Dutchess County taxpayers,” he said.
His decision to accept the funds reverses a position taken by his predecessor, William Steinhaus, who wrote to the state’s mental health commissioner, Michael Hogan, in October that the state was “abandoning” its responsibilities. He said Dutchess would not “take on this new obligation from the state with all the domino compounding impacts from the state’s ill-advised decision to close the Hudson River Psychiatric Center and say ‘thank you’ for the funding.”
Molinaro said state Sen. Steve Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, was “instrumental” in getting the funds.
Molinaro said he will send a resolution to the county Legislature asking approval.