Yakima Valley School may be gradually downsized

SELAH, Wash. -- Parents with children in the Yakima Valley School for the developmentally disabled see a bad omen
in a consultant's recommendation that the school be downsized and ultimately converted to a community center with a limited number of beds.

The report, requested by the 2009 Legislature and released last week, recommends cutting 250 beds at the state's five residential centers by closing one facility and shuttering 13 cottages at the other four by 2013.

Yakima Valley School in Selah would lose one cottage, or 16 beds, but remain open for several more years.

Last year, about 87 people lived at the school, though the consultant's report put occupancy at 102 based on a June census.

The report recommends that, no later than 2019, the state convert Lakeland in Medical Lake, Fircrest in Shoreline, north of Seattle, and Yakima Valley School into "small community support centers which provide emergency crisis support and ambulatory care/clinical outreach services."

Each community center would retain "a small number" of beds "to honor the state's commitment to allow people and their families to age-in-place," the report said.

The report was delivered to the governor and will be used by the Office of Finan-cial Management as it builds the 2010 supplemental state
budget. It was written by Davis Deshaies LLC, an Edmonds, Wash.-based consulting firm, and Berk & Associates, a Seattle consultant. They were hired under a subcontract between the state and Christopher Murray & Associates, another Seattle consulting firm.

Another part of the same report recommends closing Ahtanum View Corrections Center in Yakima and relocating the 120 offenders to a complex in Monroe.

Many of the residents at the Yakima Valley School, where the median age is 46, have spent most of their lives in the facility. After Gov. Chris Gregoire's 2009 budget recommended closing the school over a two-year period, parents and employees mounted a vigorous campaign to save it.

They prevailed, but legislators requested a study of the facilities to see where savings could be realized.

Yakima Valley School, which has 275 employees, costs $17.7 million a year to operate. About $10 million comes from the federal government, while $7 million is from the state.

The facility, established in 1958, once had 250 beds but that number has been intentionally cut by state officials to the current capacity of 128.

Reducing the total number of beds at residential centers statewide by 250 would initially cost $1.8 million in order to move residents into new group homes, but the consultant's report said the state would see net savings of $4.3 million per year thereafter.

Among other findings, the study notes that residential centers for the develop-mentally disabled are not only expensive to operate but have come to be considered obsolete as more and more states move to community-based group living for people with special needs.

But the report also notes that people who live at the centers and their families "are highly satisfied, do not want to leave and will strongly and actively resist community placement."

John Mahaney of Yakima, who uses the school to provide respite care when he needs a break from caring for his son, Mark, said the report is based on "poorly founded assumptions."

Mahaney and other parents are meeting Saturday at the school to get an update on the report and plan their response.

State Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, said he was disappointed that the report didn't offer a more thorough review of ways to make the 30-acre campus more efficient.

"I think they have a long way to go to prove their point," King said. "What are we going to save by closing one cottage?"

As recently as this spring, legislators visited the school and discussed the possibility of leasing out some of the empty administrative space in the old hospital building to other government agencies. But the consultant's report did not address that option.

The report lists three scenarios for valuing the capital assets of the Yakima Valley School. If the school was closed and sold "as is," the property would be worth about $500,000.

If the buildings were demolished, the land would bring about $200,000.

Under a third alternative, keeping a downsized facility open but selling "excess properties" -- buildings and land that could be developed for other uses -- would be worth about $500,000.

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

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