WA pays $52M to run Pierce County school for adults with disabilities. Will it close?

Yahoo

09-03-2025

The future of the Rainier School in Buckley is uncertain.
Legislators in Olympia are considering shuttering its doors — a move that would impact dozens of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who rely on the facility for housing, health care and treatment.
Two bills from Democrats — one in the state Senate and one in the state House – would shut down both the Rainier School and a similar facility in Eastern Washington, the Yakima Valley School, on June 30, 2027, if passed. The facilities would have until then to relocate current residents and would not be allowed to accept new residents at either facility.
The Senate bill is scheduled for a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Ways & Means on March 13.
The Rainier School opened in October 1939 and serves people with disabilities by offering 24-hour residential care. This includes housing, medical care, occupational and speech therapies, employment, nutrition services, recreation facilities and more. The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services runs the school.
Employees assess residents and make 'a care plan along with the person and their parent or guardian — the progression of skills that are important for that person to work on to become more independent,' Megan DeSmet, DSHS's Developmental Disabilities Administration director of facilities, told The News Tribune.
DeSmet said 81 residents live at the Rainier School and that it costs $52 million to run each year.
When The News Tribune asked what would happen to residents if the school shuts down, DeSmet said it would be different for each person.
'We would work with each individual to determine their preference to where they want to transition to,' DeSmet said. 'It could be supported living, it could be an adult family home, it could be a companion home, it could be a state-operated community residential, which is just like supported living. Depending on what their choice would be, we would work with them on a transition plan.'
DeSmet also said they would work to keep residents as close as possible.
'(We would) hopefully keep them within their area of people, not moving them too far away from their community, but it really would be person-dependent,' DeSmet said.
DeSmet said 460 full-time employees work at the Rainier School. Courtney Brunell, the Buckley city administrator, confirmed to The News Tribune that the Rainier School is the largest employer in the city of 5,114 people.
When The News Tribune asked where those employees would go if the school shut down, DeSmet said they can't decide that until a law passes — but she did note that most of the facility's employees are union-represented.
Both bills order DSHS to offer employees 'opportunities to work in state-operated living alternatives and other state facilities and programs.'
DeSmet told The News Tribune that DSHS believes the bills are dead. Olivia Heersink, communications specialist for two of the state senators sponsoring the bill, told The News Tribune that they're not.
'This bill is not subject to cutoff, so it isn't dead,' Heersink said. 'It's still under consideration.'
The bills weren't subject to deadlines to pass out of committee, because they have been deemed necessary to implement the budget.
Former Gov. Jay Inslee first proposed closing the two residential rehabilitation centers when he released his outgoing budget in December. A spokesperson for the Governor's Office told The News Tribune that his successor, current Gov. Bob Ferguson, has not weighed in on whether he wants to shut the schools down.
Heersink said senators are still considering the closures, just like the 'many other options for budget reductions' that Inslee suggested before he left office.
'If a decision is made to pursue the [closures] in the Senate budget, a public hearing will be held on that policy,' Heersink said.
The News Tribune sought interviews with Sen. June Robinson and Sen. T'wina Nobles — two of the Democratic senators sponsoring the bill — to ask why they support closing the school. Neither senator was immediately available for comment.
In the bill itself, legislators say the proposal builds off of work the state has done in the past to decrease the number of residents in these facilities and instead send them to 'smaller supported settings.'
'The legislature finds that this has been successful because of intentional efforts to honor personal choice, deliberate and transparent work with residents, families and staff, and expanding supported living and state-operated living alternative settings,' the bill says.
The News Tribune also reached out to The Arc, a disability rights organization in Washington state that has said it supports closing the facilities. The Arc did not immediately respond.
Several tragedies have taken place at the Rainier School in recent years. In 2018, The News Tribune reported that a former supervisor was sentenced for sex crimes against residents. In 2020, a resident's family sued the state, alleging the Rainier School staff's neglect following her bunion surgery led to her death in 2017.
The Washington Federation of State Employees published a news release, saying its members are worried about what would happen to both residents and employees if the school shuts down.
'(Residential habilitation centers provide) round-the-clock care, access to skilled medical professionals, and behavioral support that community-based systems are ill-equipped to deliver,' the release said. 'Aside from uprooting fragile individuals who deeply rely on routine, moving residents into community care settings would put them at risk of neglect, inadequate treatment, or worse.'
WFSE said many community-based providers are already 'stretched thin,' and said closing the school could result in residents losing access to skilled caregivers and put them at risk of ending up in unsafe living situations.