One of Brookhaven’s largest mental health facilities hascurtailed operations to cope with cuts to its annual budget.

Mississippi Adolescent Center Director Shirley Miller said herfacility has closed one of three 16-bed dormitories and reducedstaff to answer a fiscal year 2011 budget that is $809,821 lessthan the previous year’s budget after four rounds of state-levelcuts. The facility, which serves young male patients withintellectual and developmental disabilities from across the state,will continue to operate and serve approximately 30 clients, shesaid.

“We’re making that move and trying to consolidate and reduce thenumber of beds we have, which means we won’t need as many staff aswe had,” Miller said.

MAC ended the current fiscal year with a budget of $4.8 millionafter cuts, but will begin fiscal year 2011 with $3.99 million. Inmore abundant years, the facility operated with a little more than$5 million annually.

Miller would not comment on the number of jobs affected by thereduction until after the Mississippi State Personnel Board meetsThursday. Mississippi Department of Mental Health ExecutiveDirector Ed LeGrand was quoted Wednesday in the Clarion-Ledgeridentifying the number of jobs lost at 16, but departmentspokesperson Wendy Bailey said that information did not come fromher boss.

The reduction plan has been in motion for several weeks.

The only change MAC clients will experience as part of thereduction will be the addition of roommates, Miller said. She saidMAC staff is grouping the 30 clients together in the remaining twodormitories, taking care to see that clients with similar tastes,age and function levels are grouped together.

Miller said the facility would continue to operate normally.

“I think we’re going to be all right,” she said. “We’re going to bevery lean, and there won’t be any margin for error. We’re going tohave to really watch our dollars and play close to the vest. Theworkload won’t go away, but people will have two or threeadditional duties they didn’t have before.”

The reason MAC is seemingly always under the funding gun is becauseit’s one of the few DMH centers that depends entirely on statefunding. The center is not eligible for Medicaid reimbursements forservices, though Miller and her staff and working towardeligibility.

“We’re not generating any money to help pay our bills like some ofthe other facilities are,” she said. “If we were Medicaid-eligiblethat would allow us to have some more money to be reimbursed forthe services we’re providing, so some of our state funds could bereplaced by Medicaid.”

Miller said the facility would soon apply for a certificate of needwith the Mississippi State Department of Health, one of thenecessary steps to determine Medicaid eligibility.

Right next door to MAC is the Brookhaven Crisis InterventionCenter, the operation of which will likely be taken over soon byRegion 8 Mental Health Services. Lincoln County supervisors endedits relationship with Southwest Mississippi Community Mental HealthServices (Region 11) and contracted with Region 8 last week, andthe State Board of Mental Health is expected to hear the county’srequest that Region 8 run the CIC Thursday.