House members Monday felt the weight of somber testimony from parents, activists and government officials with keen interest in Gov. Sam Brownback's proposal to close a Topeka residential facility serving profoundly disabled adults.
Chairman David Crum, R-Augusta, said the House Social Services Budget Committee would decide today whether to embrace the governor's proposal to shutter Kansas Neurological Institute and transfer all 160 residents to community-based living units over a two-year period.
"Come to committee ... prepared to make a decision," he said. "We want to do the right thing."
The idea of closing KNI has been a topic of debate for more than 15 years. Emotion produced by discussion of that possibility never fails to reflect loyalty of parents or guardians to disabled residents and passion of individuals campaigning to end all forms of institutionalization.
People living at KNI have significant physical and developmental disabilities. They are primarily middle-aged adults. Many have problems with seizures, while others are fed with tubes. Many can't talk and don't walk. Some have lived at the facility for decades.
Ann Byington, representing the Kansas Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, said she found irony in Brownback's proposal to relocate KNI clients from their homes and the governor's steadfast belief all life should be viewed as sacred.
"Closure of this facility will be a tool of murder," Byington said.
Brownback has said repeatedly he has been assured KNI's residents would receive high-quality care in the community and that costs to the state for providing services to the institute's residents can be reduced.
Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, said tracking of Kansans transferred to community settings upon closure of Winfield State Hospital in 1998 demonstrated the "complete disconnect" between anxiety of parents or guardians and reality in practice.
He said research conducted one year and 13 years after Winfield's closure showed former patients with extreme disabilities experienced better quality of life outside the institution.
"When people are in the community," Nichols said, "they become more independent and their health improves."
Nichols said activists supportive of closing KNI would withdraw the endorsement if the Legislature didn't pledge all financial savings from the change to delivering services to thousands of developmentally disabled Kansans who qualify for state assistance but don't receive help due to lack of funding.
Brownback made no provision in his budget to funnel savings to Kansas' waiting list.
"The money following the person is going to be key to this," said Ray Dalton, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.
Tim Carpenter can be reached
at (785) 296-3005