If Maryland is to close an institution for the developmentally disabled, the Rosewood Center in Owings Mills should be the one, the state health department says in a report released yesterday.
But closing any institution is too costly an undertaking in the state's current fiscal climate, according to Health Secretary Nelson J. Sabatini.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene pointed to the $7.5 million, first-year cost of closing Rosewood in recommending at least a temporary reprieve for the facility.
Closing an institution would take two years or more, Sabatini said, and "you don't start saving money until the last resident is gone, and the land is disposed of."
The health department submitted the report to Del. Norman H. Conway and Sen. Ulysses Currie, chairmen of the General Assembly's budget committees. The committees had asked the department to recommend one of four institutions to close to save the state money.
It was unclear yesterday what action the chairmen will take next. Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, who represents the area, said she did not expect the matter to go much further this legislative session.
The fate of Rosewood, which opened in 1888 as the Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded, has been uncertain for years. Residents' families fended off an attempt by the state to close the facility in 1989.
Six of Maryland's 10 institutions for the developmentally disabled have closed during the past two decades, and the population of Maryland's institutions has dwindled to 404. More than 7,000 Maryland residents with disabilities receive residential services in their communities.
In its report, the health department says "the vast majority if not all residents can receive needed services in community settings."
Whether to close Rosewood has been the focus of intense debate among residents' families who believe their loved ones would not survive anywhere else and activists who say all disabled people should live in the communities they came from. Yesterday's report left neither side satisfied.
A decision to close Rosewood would throw into uncertainty the future of 235 acres of land in the middle of Owings Mills.
The state has been selling pieces of Rosewood's campus, which peaked in size at 682 acres in 1971. Baltimore County recently took steps toward buying 70 acres for the possible construction of a school.
