Northmont vs. St. Ignatius
Carlisle vs. Brookville
Beavercreek vs. Carroll
Facility's closing will strain Sheriff's Office, hospitals
Taxpayers will likely foot bill to transport inmates for psychiatric care because of Twin Valley's shuttering.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
DAYTON — With Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare closing
June 30, sheriff's deputies will have to transport Montgomery County's inmates to Cincinnati for psychiatric care, more than quadrupling the taxpayers' bill for the service.
Extras
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office expects to spend more than $89,000 in staff and fuel costs next year driving inmates believed to have a mental illness to Summit Behavioral Healthcare, Chief Deputy Phil Plummer said.
That's if a number of factors remain constant: 200 trips (the number of Twin Valley trips in 2007); deputy wages and benefits and the price of fuel, at least $3.50 a gallon.
The total cost could get higher, Plummer said.
"We have a lot of mentally ill in our jail now, and I'm afraid that's going to increase," he said.
"The main problem is the loss of manpower, the loss of deputies off the street" during the trip to Cincinnati and back, he said.
It's uncertain how the county,
already strapped for cash, will absorb the extra costs, Montgomery County Commissioner Judy Dodge said.
"It's just too much to fathom at this point," Dodge said. "We're just really trying to do everything in our power to keep Twin Valley open or to try to find some alternative that it doesn't cost us so much to transport these individuals back and forth from Cincinnati to Dayton."
Twin Valley and a similar hospital in Cambridge are closing under a budget-cutting move by Gov. Ted Strickland. Local leaders expect the closure to strain hospital emergency rooms and mental health floors, undermine the area's psychiatry and psychology training programs, and devastate patients and families that rely on mental health care close to home.
The state began moving patients to Summit on April 3, a day after the Ohio Department of Mental Health sent letters to local courts telling judges to start sending forensic inmates to Summit and state hospitals in Columbus and Toledo from then on.
"It's a mess," said Miami County Sheriff's Capt. Dave Duchak, whose deputies face a 125-mile trip to Toledo. "The state never thought this one through at all."
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7408 or
agottschlich@DaytonDailyNews.com.
