[B]URLINGTON — Maple Leaf Associates Inc., a nonprofit drug rehabilitation company that abruptly ceased operations this month, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday in federal court.
The company operated Maple Leaf Treatment Center in Underhill, a 41-bed inpatient drug rehabilitation program that accounted for 30 percent of Vermont’s total inpatient capacity. The company also had an outpatient program in Colchester, known as the Bridge program.
Board President Jeffrey Messina has declined more than a dozen interview requests from VTDigger in the last three months, and state officials have said they were never given specific reasons for the closure. Messina told other media outlets that the company’s finances contributed to the decision.
The board of trustees decided Feb. 14 to file for bankruptcy, according to a copy of the meeting minutes submitted with the filing. The minutes provide no detail on Maple Leaf’s financial situation. The board’s vote to cease operations came Feb. 8.
The filing shows Maple Leaf has $1.1 million in liabilities and $2.4 million in assets. Despite assets exceeding liabilities of more than $1 million, the bankruptcy filing states: “After any administrative expenses are paid, no funds will be available to unsecured creditors.”
The filing shows Maple Leaf owes unsecured creditors a total of $210,000. Many of those creditors are former employees who are owed hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars, according to the filing.
A meeting for creditors is scheduled April 5.
Maple Leaf hired Bethel attorney Raymond Obuchowski to handle the bankruptcy filing. In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a trustee is appointed to liquidate assets and repay creditors. Douglas Wolinsky, an attorney with the firm Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer, was appointed as trustee.
Wolinsky’s firm was approved by the court to help handle the liquidation. The firm’s rates are between $180 and $360 an hour, according to court filings. That does not include “reasonable costs and expenses.”
The filing shows Maple Leaf had only $83,000 in cash or cash equivalents, but it was owed $322,000. The Underhill property is valued at $1.2 million in the filing, and Merchants Bank has a secured claim of $877,000 on that property.
Maple Leaf leased the property in Colchester where it operated its outpatient facility, but the value of that lease is listed as “unknown” in the filing.
The company’s inpatient center closed in January because of understaffing, although it had been expected to reopen. The outpatient program operated until Feb. 9.
State officials and doctors who worked at the outpatient clinic said they were given no notice and were left scrambling to ensure more than 150 patients remained in contact with doctors and treatment wasn’t interrupted.
