By Dave Ranney, KHI News Service, March 11, 2011
TOPEKA — The House Appropriations Committee on Friday endorsed Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan to close Kansas Neurological Institute.
"This is a good thing that needs to happen," said the committee’s chairman, Rep. Marc Rhoades, R-Newton. "We need to pull the trigger."
Brownback has proposed closing the hospital over a 23-month period, starting July 1.
The committee also agreed that after the state hospital closes, most of its $29 million budget would be spent on home- and community-based services for those with developmental disabilities.
Roughly half the $29 million would be used to pay for community-based services for the hospital’s 157 residents.
Much of the remainder would be used to underwrite services for more than 2,400 people with developmental disabilities on waiting lists for local programs.
Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services Secretary Rob Siedlecki testified that he and Brownback supported "putting all the savings toward reducing the waiting list."
Initially, Siedlecki said he and the governor were "neutral" on committing the hospital’s budget to community-based services. They changed their minds, he said, after realizing that many people on the waiting list "are as disabled if not more disabled" than those at KNI.
"By closing KNI," he said, "we can still serve the 157 at KNI in the community and bring hundreds of people off the waiting lists."
At KNI, Siedlecki said, the average resident’s care costs about $180,000 a year. In the community, their care is expected to cost about $80,000 a year.
"We’re saving roughly $100,000 per (resident)," he said. "That’s enough to serve two and a half people off the waiting list."
KNI is one of two state hospitals for people with severe developmental disabilities. The other is Parsons State Hospital.
For years, advocates for people with developmental disabilities have urged lawmakers to close one or both hospitals, using the savings to underwrite additional openings in community-based programs. They said they welcomed Siedlecki’s comments.
"Excellent," said Tom Laing, executive director at Interhab, an association representing most of the state's community based programs. "This is very good news. It’s an indication of flexibility on the governor’s part that, frankly, hasn’t been there in some of the previous administrations."
Committee members’ support for closing KNI was not unanimous.
Rep. Harold Lane, D-Topeka, said he’d heard from a constituent who’s a guardian for a long-time KNI resident.
"I’m told that closing KNI will be a death sentence," for the resident, Lane said.
Rep. Lana Gordon, R-Topeka, said she thought few community programs would be able to meet the needs of most KNI residents, most of whom are unable to walk, speak, bathe or feed themselves.
Rep, David Crum, R-Augusta and chairman of the House Social Services Budget Committee, disagreed.
"We have 247 individuals being served in the community whose disabilities compare to the worst of those at KNI," he said.
The committee voted 16-6 against a Gordon motion to keep KNI open.
The vote sets the stage for a major disagreement with the committee’s Senate counterpart, which last month voted not to close KNI.