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Malloy: Closure of Southbury facility more complicated

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says closing Southbury Training School for people with severe intellectual disabilities is a more complicated budget-savings proposition than he first thought.

 

While Southbury's residential population has declined over the years to 270 as of Thursday - due to death, people moving into community-based settings and the end to new admissions - Malloy said there remains a group of people who still need "exceptional care" costing a lot of money.

 

"I think the legislature needs to understand that most of the people at Southbury really are extraordinary cases and no matter where they are, they're going to be more expensive to care for," Malloy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

 

Malloy, who previously voiced support for possibly closing Southbury, said he has visited the facility and since learned more about the unique care that's being provided, acknowledging he was "caught up in a one-size-fits-all" way of thinking earlier.

 

"We have elderly people who require a much higher level of treatment and it happens to be there. And because it's got a name and because it's got a history, people just kind of group it together," he said of the sprawling campus, which dates back to the late 1930s and has been the subject of various lawsuits.

 

"Not that I'm saying that Southbury as it once existed, even necessarily as it currently exists, should exist forever. Just that it's a more complicated issue," Malloy said.

 

The Democrat's comments come shortly after the General Assembly passed a budget-cutting bill that included language requiring the Office of Policy and Management Secretary and the Department of Developmental Disabilities commissioner to provide a plan by Dec. 31 to close Southbury and several regional centers.

 

The Developmental Disabilities commissioner already has begun soliciting public input about the future of Southbury, requesting submissions in October. Commissioner Morna Murray said she hopes to provide recommendations to Malloy by April 30.

 

Opinions are strong about the Southbury's future.

 

A coalition of disability rights groups, led by the Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities, has called for closing the facility by 2020. The group contends any savings realized should be spent reducing the lengthy waiting list for state services for people with disabilities, including supportive housing in the community. Meanwhile, a caucus of state legislators has also announced support for closing six state-run institutions, including Southbury, by 2020.

 

"There is definite movement now to talk about how the plan is going to go forward," said Molly Cole, director of the Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities. "It's just very sad to me that we're having, in this day and age, a conversation about whether to close a place that in today's world would never be opened because it's illegal."

 

The Home and School Association of the Southbury Training School is an advocacy group that includes relatives of the remaining residents who believe their loved ones are thriving at Southbury. The association argues that closure of Southbury and the other regional sites will cost Connecticut a significant amount of money over many years and exacerbate the current waiting list for services.

 

"In addition, the residents of these facilities have the legal right to remain there," the group states on its website, "and we intend to defend that right."

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Brian Kilmeade

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