SDC at a crossroads

The next few weeks could prove crucial for the future of the Sonoma Developmental Center, with a pending “resurvey” of seven intermediate care units decertified last year and a March meeting of citizens, staff and a number of legislators – including several new to the issue.

The yearly Parent Hospital Association Annual Legislative Day at the SDC will be Saturday, March 14, at the Eldridge campus, with new state legislators including Sen. Mike McGuire, and Assemblymembers Jim Wood and Bill Dodd expected to be on hand. County Supervisor Susan Gorin will also be there, and several other legislators will send staff.

In preparation, a number of local involved, supportive and interested individuals will be meeting this Thursday, Feb. 19, at 10 a.m. in the Pueblo Serena Clubhouse at 951 Fifth St. W. The meeting will include presentations from Jim Rogers, former director of SDC, and Kathleen Miller of the Parents Hospital Association. Approximately a dozen residents in the wider Sonoma area have family members in residence at the SDC.

“This is not a political issue but a humanitarian concern,” said Helen Rowntree of the informal group, Sonoma Supporters of SDC, which is organizing the Thursday meeting. “Our prisons and streets are filled with people that need developmental and health care. The least we can do is preserve a facility that has been serving this vulnerable population for over 100 years.”

The inspection of the seven intermediate care units that were decertified last year by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is scheduled to begin soon as well (not Feb 19 as previously reported). At stake is $2.5 million per month in federal funding through Medi-Cal; if these units are successfully recertified it will ensure the continuation of this funding, a significant portion of their operating cost.

The SDC presently houses 419 residents, a number that has been decreasing over the years as the developmentally disabled are transitioned to regional board and care homes. Their number is also being held down because the state’s Department of Developmental Services (DDS) has put a hold on new admittances in the wake of SDC’s partial decertification last year. The federal funding at stake in the resurvey has not been withheld pending the DDS appeal.

Meanwhile turnover continues at the state’s Department of Public Health, which oversees the DDS. Just last week the department’s chief deputy director of policy and programs, Kathleen Billingsley, announced she was leaving. The DPH chief, Ron Chapman, left at the end of January. Legislators have criticized the department over investigation backlogs and other issues, and the resignations were not unexpected.