Small Town News

Waiting for the grim details

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Medical Lake facilities await study that could recommend reducing beds at state-run institutions

Employees and administrators at Medical Lake's Lakeland Village Nursing Facility and the Pine Lodge Corrections Center for Women are anxiously awaiting a report that could recommend reductions or even closure.

Early this year a study was commissioned by the state Office of Financial Management to look at how to recoup tens of millions of dollars in budget cuts through reductions at state-run facilities. A Washington state legislative order called for approximately 1,500 prison beds and 250 residential habilitation center (RHC) beds to be cut but did not indicate where the cuts would take place.

In order to determine the answer to that question, consultants have visited numerous state prisons, juvenile rehabilitation centers and RHC facilities over the past several months, including Pine Lodge and Lakeland Village.

Department of Corrections spokesperson Maria Peterson said inmate populations are down because of legislative initiatives, caseload forecasts and existing surplus capacity in the DOC. She cautioned that simply because inspectors visited Pine Lodge does not necessarily mean it will be included in the recommendations. "The reduced inmate forecast is for all of DOC, not specific facilities," she said. "This study just puts on paper what we've known for a long time, that some beds will be reduced somewhere."

This uncertainty has been difficult to take for the 108 employees of Pine Lodge, Helen Biddulph, the facility's public information officer, said. "Everyone is on edge. Waiting to know what's going on is the hardest part, you can't plan ahead for your lives... Jobs are scarce and people are concerned."

Early this year officials decided that, instead of going through with a plan to close the prison, one Pine Lodge unit would be shut down, reducing the facility from 359 to 187 available beds and leading to the layoff of 30 employees. Now, with only one unit left, Biddulph said another round of reductions could spell the end. "If you cut any more we'd probably have to close," she said.

Most offenders uprooted by Pine Lodge's recent reductions were sent to one of the other female corrections facilities in the state, both located in Eestern Washington. One center, in Gig Harbor, can hold more than 700 offenders and the other at Mission Creek houses about 177 offenders.

Mission Creek officials said construction of a new unit there should wrap up this year, but might end up replacing a current unit. If Pine Lodge were to close, Biddulph said, "they'd have to divide offenders between the two minus those who could be put on work release or released."

"We're concerned about Pine Lodge, we're concerned about Lakeland Village, we're concerned about all these facilities," director of public affairs for the Washington Federation of State Employees Union, Tim Welch said.

Welch said the union, which has members at both local facilities, is eager to see the study. "We expect the worst, but we don't know the exact mix; they might cut all or part of any one of the institutions across Washington," he said. "They may leave Lakeland Village alone and target another."

Lakeland Village houses about 250 residents and employs approximately 650 WFSE members, as well as other non-union personnel. At a recent Medical Lake City Council meeting, Lee Malinda, vice president of Local 573, said reductions at Lakeland Village would likely target the long-term care unit, eliminating more than a third of the campus, which would effectively "devastate" the facility as a whole. "That would not be an efficient use of state services," she told council members.

After the council passed a resolution opposing the closure of either Pine Lodge or Lakeland Village, Councilman Howard Jor-genson brought up his familiarity with the issue, citing the 1994 shut down of Medical Lake's Interlake School for people with developmental disabilities.

"One of the things they do is they reduce the institution down to where it's no longer financially effective to operate," Jorgenson said. "We don't want to go down that slippery slope. It's a tough fight and reduction is almost as serious as closure."

WFSE's Welch said the union has been discussing concerns with both legislators and consultants who conducted the study. "We do expect cuts somewhere, but we also want to keep these facilities viable, not cut to the bones so that they can't perform quality services anymore," he said.

OFM officials said a comment period will accompany this week's first draft report before final recommendations move on to the Governor's office Nov. 1.

Ryan Lancaster can be reached at ryan@cheneyfreepress.com.



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© 2010 Cheney Free Press Cheney, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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