BC OKs funds to add CMHIP staff

By CHARLES ASHBY
CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU

DENVER - They weren't very happy about it, but the Joint Budget Committee grudgingly approved an emergency request late Friday to hire more staff to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo.

Several lawmakers on the six-member JBC, including Chairman Sen. Abel Tapia, said that while they didn't understand why the matter suddenly became such an emergency, they chose to approve the $1.6 million request by the Department of Human Services to hire more mental health workers because the need was real.

Tapia said the benefit of providing funding is that inmates will be restored to competency, thus relieving pressure on county sheriffs and averting lawsuits.

"We felt that if we don't do it, it gives the other side much more of an edge to end up having a judge tell us what to do, which we don't want," Tapia said.

The matter came to a head last week when a Denver District Court judge threatened to hold department Executive Director Marva Hammons in contempt of court.

The court wanted Hammons and CMHIP to treat a backlog of 81 defendants and inmates who either needed competency evaluations to see if they were fit to stand trial, or restoration treatment for those already deemed unfit mentally to be prosecuted.

The court, which agreed to allow a mediator to help iron out a settlement by early next year, even threatened the state with a $1,000 daily fine for every defendant or inmate who remains untreated.

As a result, Hammons made an emergency request to immediately hire 20 additional mental health doctors and nurses to handle those evaluations and restorations.

The hospital also plans to reopen a 20-bed facility in Pueblo, which had been abandoned months ago because of a staffing shortage caused partly by the recent recession, but also as a result of a federal lawsuit that called for the new forensic unit to be built. Several JBC members said they still weren't convinced Hammons' plan will appease the Denver court, and were upset with her and her department because the problem wasn't a new one.

Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, questioned why the department didn't come up with a plan sooner, or ask for the additional workers months ago when the JBC and the rest of the Legislature brought the issue up several times over the past two years.

"And now we've got to finish this by 5 o'clock?" White said. "This has been out there for a long, long time, and I'm just concerned that it's taken so long to come to a head when they had all the opportunity in the world to come up with a plan and present it earlier than this."

At least five JBC members said they were somewhat appeased about the situation after they were told the additional workers would have needed to be hired by the hospital anyway, though that wasn't expected to happen until next fall. Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, voted against spending the money.

The new workers are part of a larger projected request to add 49 more people to the hospital once the new CMHIP forensic unit for the criminally insane is built by 2009.

"The explanation that I got on the (workers) helped a lot," said Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction. "But my frustration was that we've been yelling about this problem for more than a year. It became urgent only after litigation was filed . . . and I don't like to be pressured into spending money."

Tapia said he, too, was frustrated with the situation, partly because the department did a poor job explaining the problem and their solution to fix it.

Still, the Pueblo Democrat said it was the explanation of what will happen to the 20 new workers that convinced the committee to approve the money.

"It's not like we'll hire 20 people and then lay them off," Tapia said. "We will have to man the new facility, anyway. So basically, this is kind of a gear up to that."

Note created January 3, 2007

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