×

Sunmount at center of OPWDD controversy

State returns due process rights to parents of children with developmental disabilities

Sunmount (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — Controversial actions by the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, reported in the Albany Times Union last week, led to OPWDD returning due process rights to a select few parents of children with developmental disabilities.

Last week, the Times Union revealed a loophole in state law that was allowing OPWDD to supersede parents’ rights to have a say in where their adult children with developmental disabilities live after they turn 21. The article centered on interviews with the parents of two people with autism or severe behavioral issues, who were told by OPWDD that they’ll have to leave the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a special education school in Massachusetts, where parents say their adult children had been thriving, to move to Sunmount.

The parents worried this would halt their childrens’ progress and put them in danger, through developmental regression or by putting them in a facility with people accused of violent crimes.

After opposition and advocacy from parents, several state lawmakers and the Albany Times Union editorial board, OPWDD is giving these families their due process rights. The change left parents happy their advocacy worked.

But these are just a few of the families impacted by this loophole.

“Due process” rights

Parents of adult children in the OPWDD system have “due process” rights that kick in when their children turn 21. These allow parents or guardians to challenge OPWDD on what is the appropriate living setting for their family member, get a hearing or request judicial review.

But a law former Gov. Andrew Cuomo passed in 2014 to ensure these options for parents left a loophole for these rights to be circumvented in the days between graduation and birthdays.

This loophole was being used to bring students graduating from out-of-state schools before turning 21 back to New York-run OPWDD facilities, against their parents’ wishes.

Their enrollment in these schools, in other states, are paid for and arranged by their school districts at home in New York. OPWDD said when they graduate and turn 21, the state can no longer fund out-of-state long-term care as they are no longer “students.”

By moving these individuals back into New York from out of state after graduation and before their 21st birthday, OPWDD can transfer individuals without parents being able to challenge where the state puts them.

Essentially, if their birthday is after graduation and before the New Year, they’re eligible to be moved before due process rights kick in.

Parents presented with this situation have to make a decision — allow the state to move their child to wherever OPWDD chooses, or lose their state assistance for long-term care for their child.

OPWDD has not answered how many individuals this affects.

State lawmakers on legislative committees for people with disabilities, families and mental health — including assemblymen Andrew Hevesi, D-Queens, Thomas Abinati, D-Pleasantville, John McDonald, D-Cohoes and state senators Samra Brouk, D-Rochester, and John Mannion, D-Syracuse — penned a letter to Hochul recently, saying they’re worried about harm to people who are moved. They are asking her to halt all relocations until the state can ensure due process rights for parents, and for her to restore state funding for families who want their child to stay at an out-of-state school.

The letter says these due process rights are “crucial in order to avoid inappropriate placements that disrupt current treatment, home life and familiar surroundings, which can lead to self-injury, improper or excessive medication, or even abuse or death.”

How is Sunmount involved?

When a graduate moving back into New York is rejected by other state schools because of their background or because they are high-needs, they could get sent to Sunmount.

“Often, OPWDD is able to provide supports at a group home within the person’s chosen community,” OPWDD said in a statement. “However if they require a higher level of support than a group home can provide, we may offer them an opportunity at Sunmount which is equipped to provide high needs transitional care for people who need additional supports and assistance before being able to thrive in a community-based setting.”

In their letter to Hochul, the state lawmakers said they’ve recently heard of several cases where OPWDD is moving developmentally disabled people in this situation to intense care centers like Sunmount.

Lawmakers told the Times Union newspaper that the state does not have enough centers for high-needs clients.

The lawmakers believe Sunmount is an “inappropriate” setting for these people.

“It is … our understanding that the facility is fenced in, lacks video monitors 24/7 and may lack the necessary level of clinical and direct care staff … their child requires,” the legislators wrote.

Sunmount’s image

The parents quoted in the first Times Union article see Sunmount as more of a prison than a healthy center for their children to live.

A portion of Sunmount’s population is developmentally disabled people who have been charged with a crime — from arson to assault — and have been deemed unfit for trial. OPWDD declined to reveal what percentage of Sunmount’s population have been charged with a crime.

These residents often live in Sunmount’s Center for Intensive Care, a fenced area for people who pose higher risks to public safety.

Tupper Lake Mayor Paul Maroun, who sits on the Sunmount Board of Directors, said he felt Sunmount got a “bum rap” in the Times Union article. He said the article didn’t mention the woodworking shop, auto shop or the recreational centers inside and outside the fenced areas, and felt it was disparaging to employees who didn’t do anything wrong.

“They deserve better than that,” he said.

He acknowledged that Sunmount is not the average center for people with developmental disabilities. Its focus on people deemed unfit for trial means the residents living there are sometimes more violent than at other OPWDD locations.

“You always got to be on your guard, that’s for sure,” Maroun said.

Sunmount is one of two OPWDD facilities that provide institution-based care — as opposed to home or community care. The other facility is Valley Ridge in Norwitch.

But that’s not the only purpose for Sunmount.

“There are also several homes on the grounds of Sunmount that provide an opportunity for community-based living while also providing the intensive supports that the person needs.” OPWDD said in a statement. “Depending upon the person’s individual needs … they would also be afforded community access to insure they are integrated with the larger community.”

But one family in the Times Union article said they were told their son would be going to “the most secure area” of Sunmount, because he requires intensive care.

“I’m convinced, in my tours of Sunmount and the staffing there, that they do a really good job of meeting the needs of the clients who are there and protecting them,” Maroun said.

Still, parents were terrified by what they saw and heard about Sunmount — fences, sexual predators and an environment they don’t believe is conducive to bettering their child’s mental and physical health.

Maroun said that sexual predators are a concern in any institutional setting, mentioning hospitals and nursing homes, too.

Parents were also concerned about the isolated location of Sunmount in relation to the majority of the state’s population, which could make visiting hard.

Cost saving?

Legislators chalked the state’s returning of out-of-state graduates to New York and the circumventing of parental rights up to an attempt to save money, or to avoid sending it out of the state.

“We understand that placements in certain facilities are more cost effective, but when these clients regress behaviorally, it can lead to permanent physical and psychological injury,” they wrote.

They said that improper placement means that a developmentally disabled person is more likely to be drugged, injured or to become violent and end up in the criminal justice system.

OPWDD declined to say whether this was a cost-saving move.

“At a certain time, taxpayers from the state of New York can’t be sending money out of the state when we have facilities in the state that do very good jobs with clients,” Maroun said.

OPWDD says it is working with families to sort out the best paths for their children with developmental disabilities.

“OPWDD is committed to identifying appropriate services to meet every person’s needs and to creating a person-centered plan to support them in New York once they complete their education in another state,” OPWDD Director of Communications Jennifer O’Sullivan wrote in a statement. “OPWDD works closely with each student and their family to identify an appropriate in-state placement that will meet their specific needs to ensure that the student can return to NYS, their official place of residency, to receive appropriate adult services at the time they complete their education (at the end of the school year in which the student reaches the age of 21).”

OPWDD says its process is legal. But in their letter, the state lawmakers say they believe these actions may violate a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1999, in which the court ruled that developmentally disabled people are entitled to the least restrictive care possible and should be integrated in the community to avoid “unjustified segregation.”

In the meantime, Maroun said everyone is waiting to see what Hochul will do.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today