Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mental Health Facilities topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Glencliff Home cites high vacancies and asks for funded positions to sustain discharges to community
Summary
Glencliff Home leaders told Division III the facility’s vacancy rates for nurses and LNAs exceed 50%, limiting census and slowing movement of patients into community placements despite recent increases in discharges to the community.
Todd (Louis Todd Bickford), executive director of the Glencliff Home, and Nathan White, DHHS chief financial officer, told the House Finance Division III that Glencliff’s work to discharge residents into community settings has shown progress but remains constrained by staffing and infrastructure challenges.
Glencliff is a CMS-certified nursing facility that serves people with serious mental illness and developmental disabilities. Bickford said the campus is remote and off-grid in places, which complicates infrastructure and broadband/Wi‑Fi delivery; the facility plans to install Starlink as a backup to improve resident access.
The home reported a substantial vacancy problem: overall vacancy across departments was reported near 37 percent, with nurses at about 51 percent and LNAs at about 52 percent; second-shift LNA vacancy was noted as high as 66 percent. Officials said they had capped admissions for safety several years ago and have been gradually raising census; a prior cap at 121 has been increased to a current target of 75 residents because staffing constraints previously required the cap. Bickford said Glencliff has 19 people on a fluid waitlist and estimated an average active wait time of about six months for applicants who complete paperwork promptly; he reported the facility discharged 11 residents to community placements in the prior year, a significant increase from a decade prior.
White and the director described the budget challenge: the Glencliff accounting unit contains a number of positions that are currently unfunded in the governor’s proposal (agency testimony listed 54 unfunded positions in the professional care accounting unit, including 16 nurses and 37 LNAs). Committee members pressed whether the missing positions effectively institutionalize a permanent vacancy rate and whether budgeted savings were being used to fund temporary contract (traveler) staffing instead. White said the department uses vacancy funding during the fiscal-year transfer process to pay for agency staffing when needed, but committee members warned that the proposed budget’s structure could make it difficult for the facility to hire permanent staff rather than rely on expensive travelers.
Members asked for a prioritized list of positions Glencliff would require to raise staffing to safe operational levels and how many positions would need funding to reduce agency contracts and overtime. Bickford said lowering nurse and LNA vacancies to around 30 percent would reduce reliance on agency staff and overtime and allow higher census numbers; he said he believed about one-third of the currently unfunded positions would need to be funded to achieve that target but cautioned that some openings have historically been difficult to fill.
Bickford and DHHS agreed to provide the committee with a prioritized personnel list and additional financial detail to support any targeted adjustments.
Ending: Committee members flagged the Glencliff staffing picture as a likely area for further budget scrutiny and asked department staff to return a prioritized staffing request that explains expected hires, recruitment prospects and fiscal impact.
