DRCNH Home > News > Center of Hope Battle Resumes

By Chris Dornin
Golden Dome News Service
August 4, 2005
Published in the Carroll County Independent

CONWAY — Commissioner John Stephen took strong criticism from the Joint Health Service Committee last week over his plans to decertify the Conway-based Center of Hope area agency for people with development impairments. Lawmakers chided him and his staff for basing the cost saving effort on a flimsy financial report and with little public input.

“I don’t like the adversarial role you’ve put lawmakers in,” said Rep. Barbara French (D-Henniker). “I care deeply about these people we serve. I regret we were unable to study this first. I’d like more of a sense you’re working with the legislature on this.”
Northern New Hampshire Mental Health and Developmental Services, which currently serves clients from Carroll County to the Canadian border, will take over next year. Lynch said he wants the two program boards to cooperate to make the transition work for clients and their families.

“Our goal is no impact on direct services,” he said. “And we want to keep the same local presence. I firmly believe you’ll see an improvement in services.”

The plan is to save $1.5 million in duplications and use $800,000 of it to serve 29 people now on the waiting list for care.

But governor John Lynch has reservations about the merger. And there could be time for the legislature to undo the whole process. Lynch has appointed a commission to study all aspects of area agencies and make a report before the next lawmaking term begins. Anything could happen next spring.

Richard Cohen, head of the Disability Rights Center, will chair the governor’s commission, and its first meeting is Friday, Aug. 5. He hopes for extensive input from clients, families, staff, board members of area agencies and other stakeholders. The goal is a wide-open process that defines how to make the system better and more efficient.

Cohen is bothered by the short history of agency mergers under Stephen.

The state closed three peer support groups in Concord, Laconia and Franklin, he said, and contracted with a new provider to centralize the drop-in program for people with mental illness.

“Now there’s no Franklin office,” Cohen said. “Those people take a bus to Laconia. But it’s one trip a day, and people don’t like to stay all day. Fewer and fewer are making the ride. It looks like one whole community has gotten shut out of services.”

Rep. Fred King (R-Colebrook) sits on the Joint Health and Human Services Oversight Committee.

He asked Stephen a lot of tough questions about the fiscal savings and swung around to supporting the consolidation.

“It seems logical,” King said. “If we can eliminate overlap, we can free up money to help residents. Why have two offices, two executive directors, two HR people and two finance officers? Both agencies serve essentially the same population. They’re getting together on it and trying to work it out.”

Rep. Debra Naro (R&D-Plymouth) co-sponsored the bill to study area agencies, and she thinks the Cohen committee will do some critical work.

“The state never substantiated its claim of savings with any hard data,” she said. “Changing systems like that could harm a vulnerable population. We closed Laconia State School with a promise to serve people in their own communities. A merger without a cost benefit analysis breaks that commitment.”

Rep. Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) said he’d talked to leaders of the two agencies, and they give him a sense the transition will be amicable on the east side of the state. He thinks the move makes good fiscal sense, but it’s always hard to change an entrenched bureaucracy.

“The Center of Hope is in my district, and I wish the coin flip had gone differently,” Chandler said. “This kind of consolidation probably needs to happen in other regions and types of service.”

Asked about the impact study, Chandler said he’s known commissioner Stephen a long time, and he would never do anything to hurt the clients.

“He believes strongly this is a step forward and deserves a chance,” Chandler said. “The system is top heavy with bureaucracy. He reached out and asked the agencies for help saving costs. I don’t thing he got much help.”

Senator John Gallus (-Berlin) said the merger between Lebanon and Claremont is hostile, but there seems to be little deep opposition to the one in the Conways.

“I know the governor’s office isn’t fairly pleased, but it’s a little late for a study now,” Gallus said. “That horse has left the barn.

The same people as now will be delivering direct care. We won’t save a ton of money by streamlining things, but we need to save every penny we can. ”