[T]he Agency of Human Services is seeking to keep a temporary psychiatric facility in Middlesex open two years longer than scheduled.
The seven-bed secure residential facility, located near the Vermont State Police barracks, opened in 2013 after flooding from Tropical Storm Irene forced the closure of the state hospital in Waterbury.
The Middlesex facility is due to close by Jan. 1, 2018. Now the agency is seeking to delay that by two years because it needs more time to build a permanent facility elsewhere.
In a February letter to the Middlesex Selectboard, Secretary of Human Services Hal Cohen asked for the permit extension. The state still needs to identify a site for the permanent facility, determine whom it will serve, take staffing matters into consideration and settle on the funding, Cohen wrote.
“Given these ongoing evaluation components to be resolved, a final recommendation and cost request will likely not be introduced until the beginning of the 2017 legislative session,” Cohen wrote.
At a meeting last week, the Middlesex Selectboard opted to withhold action on the request until getting further information from the state. Board members are also waiting to see whether the facility is addressed in the finalized state budget and the capital bill adjustment.
Select Board Chair Peter Hood said the request raises questions about how the state has held up its end of the bargain for locating the temporary facility in the town.
“We’re not trying to back the state into the corner,” Hood said, “but they have an amazing way of changing the rules of the game as they go along.”
In general, Hood said, the town’s experience with the facility has been positive. He has received no complaints from town residents about it.
However, Hood said he believes the state has not upheld a part of an initial agreement that potentially dangerous criminals would not be held there.
In May, Town Clerk Sarah Merriman got a phone call inquiring about registering to vote in Middlesex from Elizabeth Teague, who has been involuntarily hospitalized since she was found incompetent to stand trial in connection with a 1991 workplace shooting.
According to minutes from the March 22 meeting, when asked if there had been any escapes from the facility, Mental Health Commissioner Frank Reed said there had been one “elopement” when a patient scaled the fence. He was found shortly thereafter near the facility.
In an interview Friday, Reed said that all patients held in Middlesex are considered stable. He said he could not comment on whether Teague is at the facility.
All residents of the facility have gone through a court process and it’s been determined they are not a danger to themselves or others, according to Reed. A violent history does not mean that person remains violent, he said.
“By being at that place at one point in their life, doesn’t mean that they always are,” Reed said.
Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, said Friday he had been active in brokering a deal on the secure residential facility in 2013. However, Klein said he doesn’t believe the state has been “totally forthright” about the situation since then.
“I’m in the business of trying to make Vermonters have confidence in their government, and when this kind of stuff happens, it just really irritates me,” Klein said.
If the extension is approved, Klein believes the town of Middlesex should be offered compensation. “And they need some compensation because the state has to be held to its word,” he said.
Klein said the changing parameters in the situation in Middlesex could prove to be a deterrent for other communities as the state looks for sites. “If this is the path that we continue to go down then nobody’s going to accept facilities in their neighborhood,” he said.
Rep. Linda Myers, R-Essex, is vice chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, which puts together the state’s biennial budget that funds infrastructure projects. The request to extend the operating period for the Middlesex facility is “because of where we aren’t yet,” Myers said.
The new facility is likely to be a maximum 16 beds, limited by federal regulations, she said. But there are still big questions to be settled, such as where the facility will be located.
“No matter what, it just takes time,” Myers said.
Reed said the process is determined by the Legislature. At this point, it is not likely that plans for a permanent facility would proceed until the planning for fiscal year 2018.
Decisions still need to be made about which patients the facility will serve and whether it would be entirely state-run, or run through a public and private partnership, he said.
Hood said he knows the state budget is tight and that he is not opposed to keeping the facility open. He even inquired if the town is being considered as a site for the permanent facility, but was told it’s not.
Ultimately, Hood expects the Selectboard will approve the two-year extension. However, he noted that this is an opportunity for the town to check in with the state on the agreement.
He wants the state to keep up its end of the bargain, he said.
“At the speed they’re moving, the years go by pretty fast,” Hood said.
