Cottonwood to close: Budget cuts seal fate of facility

The governor's decision to veto or freeze more than $1.1 billion in Missouri's 2015 fiscal year budget has a local children's mental-health facility counting the days until its doors close for good.

Nearly $500,000 for Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center in Cape Girardeau has been restricted. The facility is no longer accepting new patients and will close around Jan. 1, said Keith Schafer, director of the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

Cottonwood has about 95 full- and part-time employees. Services are funded through the Department of Mental Health, federal reimbursements and client fees, according to the government agency's website.

The 32-bed treatment center is serving 24 children. Those admitted to Cottonwood must be between the ages of 6 and 17 and have a serious psychiatric disorder.

Schafer said Cottonwood will continue the treatment regimens for the children it's already serving, but others in need of similar treatment will have to seek it elsewhere because the facility will be freezing admissions.

Some of the children at the Cape Girardeau facility might be transferred to Hawthorn Children's Psychiatric Hospital in St. Louis. It has a residential and hospital component that equal a combined total of 44 beds. There are currently 12 children in the 16 residential beds at the St. Louis facility.

Some children nearing the end of their treatment will remain at Cottonwood, a facility that already has a strong understanding of their needs, Schafer said. Those who have been at the center for the least amount of time will be among the first considered for transfer.

Hawthorne is the only other children's mental health facility still operated by the state.

Overall, the state's mental health department sustained about $34 million in cuts, and Schafer said determining where the cuts would be made was an extremely difficult decision. Closing Cottonwood was not based on poor performance, he added, but on the greatest needs within the department and the availability of private services.

Schafer said about 56 private agencies statewide provide 1,900 beds that are "somewhat comparable to what Cottonwood provides," meaning they offer intensive residential treatment to children with severe disorders. Children still would be able to seek treatment at these facilities as well as Hawthorne when the Cape Girardeau center shut down.

But that doesn't mean losing Cottonwood won't put pressure on other facilities to find space for children in need of care.

"This will put a strain on everybody, not just our Hawthorne facility," Schafer said.

The department also has to consider its other needs, he said. The mental health department provides services for about 170,000 adults dealing with severe mental illnesses, emotional difficulties and alcohol or drug abuse.

"Our institutional services are quite often reserved for people who are adults with serious mental illness who have been committed to us by the courts, and we don't have any discretion in changing those programs, and, sadly, unfortunately, places like Cottonwood [that] provide services for children, those aren't court ordered," Schafer said, "so if we have to make these difficult cuts, then we have to look at places like Cottonwood."

The news of the closing was delivered to management and staff Tuesday, just before the governor's morning announcement of the budget cuts. Hours later, supporters of the center created an online petition urging Gov. Jay Nixon not to close the facility.

Cottonwood has been threatened with closure because of past budget cuts, but has managed to survive since it first opened in 1987.

When then-governor Bob Holden cited lack of available revenue for the center in 2004, local lawmakers managed to work out a plan to save the facility by leveraging federal money to cover a portion of its operational costs, at the behest of local supporters.

The online petition had more than 1,000 signatures by 6 p.m. Wednesday.

srinehart@semissourian.com

388-3641

Pertinent address:

1025 N. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Jefferson City, Mo.