Shortsighted
When Governor Quinn announced that he was going to close seven different facilities across the state, including two developmental centers serving people with developmental disabilities, because of budget shortfalls he released a fact sheet outlining the amount of savings to be realized from the closings. However, it's hard to understand how the Governor arrived at his numbers.
The Governor states closing Jack Mabley and Jacksonville Developmental Centers by the end of February 2012 will save $14.6 million in fiscal year 2012. This is based upon reported annual operating budgets of $10.7 and $27.9 million for Mabley and Jacksonville respectively. These numbers are different than those listed in the FY2012 budget, but we'll use them as they are the numbers reported by the Governor.
The state's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30 each year. If both facilities close by February 29, 2012, they will be removed from the budget for the last four months of the fiscal year. This suggests that understanding the savings to be gained is a simple matter of dividing the annual operating budgets by 12 to determine the monthly cost for each center, then multiplying that number by four to find out what the state will save between March and June. I've done that below:
Confusingly enough, using the numbers the Governor provides, the actual savings come out to be about two million dollars less than the Governor projects. This would seem to bring into question whether the math for the rest of the Governor's plan adds up.
Even if we assume the Governor's numbers are correct, there is another significant detail that appears unaccounted for.
Where Did All the People Go?
The Governor's projected savings from the closing of Mabley and Jacksonville are listed as if all of the costs related to operating these programs will disappear the day the doors of the facility's have closed. But the Governor appears to have forgotten one important detail:
The nearly 290 people who live at Mabley and Jacksonville
Whether or not Mabley and Jacksonville are closed, the people living there will continue to need somewhere to live and will continue to require intensive care and supervision. As we've already discussed, the shamefully short timeframe that has been outlined virtually guarantees the majority will move to other State Operated Developmental Centers.
This will mean the populations of the remaining developmental centers in Illinois will grow. Along with that growth of population the cost of operating the other developmental centers will also grow. When Howe closed the costs of of caring for the people who lived there did not simply disappear. Rather, when it shut it's doors at the end of 2010 seven of the eight remaining state operated developmental centers - Shapiro, Ludeman, Kiley, Murray, Fox, and Jacksonville and Mabley - required budget adjustments - increases in the millions of dollars - in the 2011 operating budgets to provide care for the people moving out of Howe.
It Takes People to Care for People
Those increases in operating costs at the remaining facilities were primarily due to the increased personnel each center required. Ensuring the safety and care of people with developmental disabilities is a labor intensive activity.
Skilled labor, to be precise. When Howe was closed it is certainly the case that the state saved costs in terms of the maintenance and care of the facility and its grounds. But of the staff working at Howe, the overwhelming majority moved to similar positions at other developmental centers.
Given that the overwhelming majority - about 73% - of the people who lived at Howe also moved to other state centers, this makes sense. While Howe no longer existed, the people who lived there still did, and still continued to require skilled care. If they close these facilities, most of the operating cost, like the people living in them, can be expected to simply move to other state operated centers. Even if they were to move to community settings, they would still be cared for through state funding. The Governor’s plan doesn’t cut those costs - it simply relocates them.
What's Left to Save?
In fact, skilled care personnel is the major factor for every state operated developmental center. At Mabley the personnel budget for 2012 represents 84% of the cost of operating the facility, and it represents 87% of the operational cost for Jacksonville. When the people at those centers move those costs will not be saved - they will be transferred.
The only costs the Governor can reliably expect to save are those not related to personnel.
If we run the Governor's numbers again with this in mind, this is what we find:
If we take the Governor's numbers as he presents them, cutting the non-personnel related operational costs from Jacksonville and Mabley will save less than $1.8 million. Even if we accept that there will be some savings just by economy of scale it seems unlikely that the savings will amount to much more than $2 million. This is a far cry short of the $14.6 million that is suggested, and approaches amounts described by some as being equivalent to a budgetary rounding error.
It is, in fact, roughly equivalent to the error noted in the Governor's original calculations above.
The proposed closures of these facilities will uproot the lives of nearly 290 people with autism and other developmental disabilities - people who struggle significantly with inconsistency and change - only to move them to another state operated center all for a real-world savings that amounts to 0.004% of the state's $52.7 billion budget.
Shortsighted at best.
