Yakima Valley School survives state budget cuts

SELAH, Wash. -- The Yakima Valley School has survived one of the most brutal state budgets in recent memory, but legislators say the Selah facility for the developmentally disabled will have to become more efficient if it’s to remain open long term.

A compromise budget emerged Thursday that continues funding for the facility, which is home to 87 residents — most of whom are profoundly physically and mentally disabled. The school employs 275.

Yakima Valley legislators credit parents and employees with ultimately persuading skeptical lawmakers in the Senate, which had not dropped the facility from its budget plan.

“Their stories were compelling,” said Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima.

Parents faced the prospect of finding new homes for their children — many of whom are adults who have spent most of their lives at the school.

For Anne Kruger of Yakima, the thought of sending her daughter Theresa, 35, out of town to one of the four other state-run residential facilities, was stressful. She said she was overjoyed to learn the school will stay open, but worries the battle will be ongoing.

“The next budget cycle I’m sure they’ll try to get rid of us again,” she said.

The decision also preserves respite care for parents like John Mahaney of Yakima. He cares for his son, Mark, 25, at home but takes him to the school when he needs a break. Or, as Mahaney puts it, “When Mark needs a break from me.”

Mahaney, who made several trips to Olympia to lobby legislators, will be there again today to say thanks. “If my son could speak, he would thank everyone as well.”

Gov. Chris Gregoire started the debate over the school with her proposal in December to phase it out by 2011.

King said two of his colleagues — Sens. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland — quietly teamed up in the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week to defeat a technical bill that would have been necessary to kill the school.

Neither senator was immediately available for comment, but Oemig’s legislative aide, Syd Locke, said it was King “who did the heavy lifting.”

 The powerful Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents employees and has particular influence with the Democratic majorities in both chambers, also campaigned to save the school.

King and Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches, said they agreed to work in the interim on a plan to squeeze some savings out of the school, which costs more than $17.7 million a year to operate. About $10 million comes from the federal government, while $7 million is from the state.

One idea gaining momentum is to use the original hospital building as office space for other government agencies. The five-story brick building on Speyers Road hasn’t housed residents since the 1980s. They live in separate duplex cottages on campus, each with about eight beds.

But Ross and King said they remain skeptical of cost figures put forward by the Department of Social and Health Services. The agency said the annual cost per resident at the facility is $185,785 compared with $88,006 for a community living situation, such as a group home or apartment with a caregiver.   

The group home figure doesn’t include the cost of medical and dental care or physical and occupational therapy. Community and in-home care nevertheless remain less expensive than places like the Yakima Valley School, which has a ratio of one staff member for every three residents and whose employees earn union-scale wages.

Closing the school would have saved only $1.2 million in the initial two-year budget cycle, but the state said those savings would have grown over time.

Ross said the state has been declining requests from families to send their disabled children to the school, lowering its population and thus generating less revenue.

The facility once had 250 beds but that number was intentionally cut to its current capacity of 128.

“If you’re continually denying access, you’re forcing costs up,” Ross said. “They are just making this model more expensive.”

But a well-organized contingent of advocates for the developmentally disabled community that is opposed to large, residential facilities doesn’t believe families will choose institutional care.

“Most families don’t want that as an option. Families think they should take care of their own. Is that wrong?” said Sue Elliott, executive director of the Arc of Washington, a nonprofit that advocates for the developmentally disabled.

About 16,000 developmentally disabled individuals across the state are awaiting services in their own homes, and advocates like Elliott believe more of them could be served if the residential facilities were downsized.

“It holds the family together and is less costly to the state. I would think Republicans in your area would want to do that.”

But Ross said the question came down to government’s core responsibilities.

“Regular people believe this is a priority of government. To protect the vulnerable. If we’re not doing this, what are we doing?”

• Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.