NORWICH – Ongoing administrative changes at Valley Ridge Center for Intensive Treatment, coupled with cutbacks in the number of staff and consumers, have left county lawmakers concerned about the maximum security institution’s future in Norwich.
Supervisors David C. Law, R-Norwich, and Ross P. Iannello, politically unaffiliated-New Berlin, recommended a letter to the region’s state legislators and to officials at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities in protest of a rumored move.
“We hear rumors that they would like to pull it out of Norwich and into Broome County,” Law told members of two county committees last week. “That would be a huge blow, with $52,000 annual salaries on average up there.”
Valley Ridge CIT was built on Upper Ravine Road in Norwich in 2002. It originally served 60 developmentally disabled men who committed crimes against people and property. The treatment program includes clinical services ranging from basic living skills to intensive anger therapy and relapse prevention services.
In mid-2009, Valley Ridge came under the auspices of Broome Developmental Disabilities Services Organization, a program of the state’s OPWDD. Since then, directors and day-to-day operations managers have changed several times and a local monitoring group that used to meet in Norwich regularly has less oversight of the Chenango County facility. CIT Board of Visitors meetings are now being conducted at the Broome Developmental Center in Broome County.
Iannello said he was concerned about the amount of overtime, employee cuts and complaints from former workers on a waiting list that they won’t be rehired.
“It’s just conjecture, but perhaps Broome is making their program look better with Valley Ridge. I would be concerned about moving people out of here, with about $2 million in salary up there. We made a lot of concessions for them, offered property and built a road,” he said.
Members of the Chenango County Planning & Economic Development Committee agreed to send communications to the OPWDD acting commissioner, New York Assemblymen Crouch and Lopez and Senator Libous.
A spokesperson for OPWDD said there are no current plans to pull the intensive treatment center out of Norwich, nor, in particular, to become part of the recently renovated Binghamton Psychiatric Center in Broome County. OPWDD spokesperson Nicole Weinstein confirmed that there were 15 fewer consumers in treatment now, however, and that 12 staff were transferred when Valley Ridge merged with Broome DDSO.
CIT Board of Visitors President Steve Bernardi said there is always a chain of command in any state agency, and the public should “absolutely not” be concerned about safety with the leadership changes. The CIT BOV learned last fall that there were 234 citations of alleged consumer on staff and staff on consumer abuse at the facility from Dec. 2009 to Sept. 2010.