WSH crew braces for state cuts

All 690 workers at the state mental hospital in Staunton have been warned of potential layoffs as a result of Virginia’s budget squeeze.

Employees at Western State Hospital received a memo from the facility’s director, Dr. Jack Barber, advising that during previous rounds of state cuts, administrators had slashed spending “without laying off anyone who did not apply to go. This is our aim with this rounds’ [cuts] as well.”

Still, officials are braced for incisions that could slice far deeper than before, possibly leaving less money for clinical services and community service boards, a critical front line of defense in safeguarding the mentally ill.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who is seeking to close a $1.5-billion gap, is expected to announce reductions early next week, spokesman Gordon Hickey said. State agencies earlier this year submitted plans to the governor for 5-, 10- and 15-percent cuts.

It’s not the first time Western State has faced the prospect of paring spending. Since 2002, the facility has trimmed its budget by $4 million, said John Beghtol, Western State’s director of community services,

On each of those occasions, Beghtol said, the hospital avoided cuts to clinical services which includes the work of psychologists, psychiatrists and nurses. But, he added, “you can only cut administration and support services so far.”

Another concern for the 260-bed mental hospital is the potential trimming of budgets for Virginia’s community service boards. Seventeen, or more than a third, of Virginia’s 40 community boards are in Western State’s service area. “If community service boards are cut significantly, they lose the ability to hold onto people in the community,’’ Beghtol said.

If community boards are forced to scale back outpatient services, the alternative is admitting patients to Western State, Beghtol said.

That’s a prospect that particularly concerns Don Lewis, executive director of the Valley Community Services Board that serves Waynesboro, Staunton and Augusta and Highland counties.

Among the services Valley Community Service Board now offers is what Lewis described as “a hospital without walls.”

The Valley board’s program of assertive community treatment team provides regular treatment to 80 to 90 area residents. Lewis said the annual cost of that treatment is about $90,000 per person and it involves regular contact with a treatment team staffed by a psychiatrist and case managers.

“Without that support,” Lewis said, the burden of providing care would shift to Western State, where an annual stay costs about $200,000.

“We don’t have a clue of the impact at this point,’’ Lewis said. “The worst-case scenario could devastate us.”

Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, said the timing of potential cuts to mental health services is not good.

“In times such as these with a lot of economic uncertainty, people are in dire straits and the need for the services increases,’’ Hanger said.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings two years ago, the General Assembly followed up with Kaine to offer $41 million in additional money for mental health reform. That helped increase monitoring and accountability for community service boards, establish a training program for crisis intervention and increased case management.

Lawmakers also changed involuntary commitment standards and monitoring procedures for outpatient mental health care to give officials increased flexibility in ordering the hospitalization of patients in more severe cases.