| PEF-Pataki pact saves, expands mental health services for Middletown area By SHERRY HALBROOK Thanks to the arduous efforts of PEF leaders, members and staff, the union has reached an agreement with the governor’s office and the state Office of Mental Health (OMH) ensuring PEF members’ jobs and services, now at Middletown Psychiatric Center, continue after that facility closes on April 1, 2006. The agreement provides for 10 new or enhanced community programs (See box, this page) listed in a March 21 letter from William Howard, first deputy secretary to the governor, to PEF President Roger Benson.  ROAD KILL — This PEF ad, which appeared in the January Legislative Gazette, was part of PEF’s initial opposition to closing the Middletown Psych Center and moving patients. “As a result of PEF’s negotiations with the governor’s office, substantial additional services will be provided to the mentally ill in Orange and Sullivan Counties,” Benson said. PEF represents 141 of the 313 staff now at Middletown PC. The new agreement would provide approximately 118 new state jobs in community-based services. OMH officials also have told PEF 178 of the Middletown staff will be invited to transfer to Rockland Psychiatric Center when Middletown’s inpatients are moved there. “We were told no PEF members will have to transfer to Rockland if they don’t want to go,” Benson said. Legislators played key role Benson credited PEF’s good relationships with state lawmakers in both houses and “particularly with critical legislators in the Mid-Hudson area” as key to achieving the agreement. Benson singled out the strong support of Senate Mental Health Chair Thomas Morahan, Sen. John Bonacic, Assembly Mental Health Chair Peter Rivera and Assembly Member Aileen Gunther as particularly helpful in resolving the issue. For several years, the governor had proposed closing Middletown PC. However, this year, he opened the door for compromise by changing his budget proposal to include a promise that the state would reinvest the $7.8 million saved by closing the psych center into community-based mental health services provided state employees. Members’ unity big factor Benson thanked PEF Region 9 Coordinator Neila Cardus, Division 279 Council Leader Cindy Bartley-Horn and Executive Board Member Marianne Albamont for their vigorous advocacy and leadership in gaining the legislative support for preserving these mental health services and jobs. “I also want to thank Vice President Pat Baker, who is PEF chair of the state OMH Labor-Management Committee, and Deputy L-M Chair Debbie Lee for helping develop our negotiating position on this issue,” Benson said. “Of course, our legislative, research, mobilization and field staff all played key roles in supporting these efforts.” Albamont said Bartley-Horn and Division 279 member mobilizers met with the mental health commissioners from both Orange and Sullivan counties and other mental health providers to learn what their priority service needs are. “Our member mobilizers are wonderful,” Bartley-Horn said. “They are so well connected to everyone in town. They really get the word out within an hour or two when we call a meeting or have news to report.” Not perfect, but very good Negotiating the Middletown agreement was very much like contract negotiations, Bartley-Horn said. “It feels good now because we got more than OMH originally offered. But is it everything we want or the community needs? No.” “The agreement we eventually reached doesn’t provide everything we wanted, but it is a good start,” Albamont said. Among the services PEF sought, but were left out of the plans, are a local inpatient triage unit and an OMH pharmacy. Benson said this agreement could become a model for resolving similar issues. “We view this as a pilot,” he said, “but if it doesn’t work the way it should, we will strongly oppose any future plans for closing such facilities. “PEF will remain extremely vigilant in enforcing this agreement,” Benson said, adding the good will and good faith of OMH would be “extremely important to any future PEF agreement regarding community-based services.” |
Middletown OMH services planned |
The
Communicator May 2005
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