Angry husband time
On Sept. 30, my wife will be out of a job that she loves dearly. Evergreen Counseling Center, a 39-year established mental health agency, will close its doors for good.
The obit will be ugly: County cuts its funding, mismanagement and competition from outside agencies greased the downhill slide of ECC into its grave site on the banks of the Hoquiam River.
The causes of death are many: the county (cut funding, personal vendettas against Evergreen, no support from the County Commissioners), Evergreen (mismanagement, ill-fated expansion into Olympia) and the economy (smaller tax base, less money to go around, competition coming in from Olympia and other in-county agencies).
In this house, it has been tough. The budget has been examined, cuts have been identified and not knowing whether you'll have a job or not weighs heavily here. This is on top of not receiving a raise in two years - cost of living or merit - and excuses for not matching or contributing to any of the employees' retirement funds. If anyone wants to know what the staff did through all of this, it is easy: They worked their asses off with less pay and less benefits because of Evergreen's mismanagement and the county's cutting of funding.
She's handled this better than I have, mostly because she has the displeasure of dealing with the aftermath of telling her clients of the closing and the last-minute details in getting a possible job for the incoming agency.
As for me, my anger is at those who I (and a lot of people at Evergreen and associated with them in family, clients and family of clients) believe caused and allowed this to happen - five of them are with the county and two of them were with Evergreen. They're going to get off scot-free, which makes this even more infuriating.
The new agency isn't a bed of roses, unlike what the county believe they will be. BHR-Olympia is having trouble negotiating a contract with its employees and their union, holding back money that was given by the state legislature for the employees supposedly. The union wants the money. BHR says it isn't there.
Add to the fact that they'll probably get all of the money from Evergreen's contract proposal ($2 million less than one year ago, causing Evergreen to close its doors), BHR has now expanded and needs clinical staff to take over what Evergreen has left. You'd think BHR would speed up the process, get everyone in and go from there. It hasn't happened. The closer the closing date gets without offers of jobs to those clinical staff and Evergreen employees who are going to be staying on, the likelihood of a possible "take it or leave it" offer is presented. (Yes, this is cynical, but do you believe BHR will treat these 'Evergreen' employees any better than the unionized ones they have?)
There are a lot of people to blame for this - the county and Evergreen itself. The ones who are being affected by this is the clinical staff and their clients. They didn't deserve this, but they're getting the short end of it. They and their families deserve better and the county and Evergreen's upper management let them down.
Let's hope re-election time doesn't come too soon for those in the county or public work is offered for those who doomed Evergreen from the inside. There's no forgive and forget from this angry husband and I have a very long memory.
******
If you want to read everything so far on this, here's an archive link to all of the stories in The Daily World: Evergreen Counseling Closing stories
The obit will be ugly: County cuts its funding, mismanagement and competition from outside agencies greased the downhill slide of ECC into its grave site on the banks of the Hoquiam River.
The causes of death are many: the county (cut funding, personal vendettas against Evergreen, no support from the County Commissioners), Evergreen (mismanagement, ill-fated expansion into Olympia) and the economy (smaller tax base, less money to go around, competition coming in from Olympia and other in-county agencies).
In this house, it has been tough. The budget has been examined, cuts have been identified and not knowing whether you'll have a job or not weighs heavily here. This is on top of not receiving a raise in two years - cost of living or merit - and excuses for not matching or contributing to any of the employees' retirement funds. If anyone wants to know what the staff did through all of this, it is easy: They worked their asses off with less pay and less benefits because of Evergreen's mismanagement and the county's cutting of funding.
She's handled this better than I have, mostly because she has the displeasure of dealing with the aftermath of telling her clients of the closing and the last-minute details in getting a possible job for the incoming agency.
As for me, my anger is at those who I (and a lot of people at Evergreen and associated with them in family, clients and family of clients) believe caused and allowed this to happen - five of them are with the county and two of them were with Evergreen. They're going to get off scot-free, which makes this even more infuriating.
The new agency isn't a bed of roses, unlike what the county believe they will be. BHR-Olympia is having trouble negotiating a contract with its employees and their union, holding back money that was given by the state legislature for the employees supposedly. The union wants the money. BHR says it isn't there.
Add to the fact that they'll probably get all of the money from Evergreen's contract proposal ($2 million less than one year ago, causing Evergreen to close its doors), BHR has now expanded and needs clinical staff to take over what Evergreen has left. You'd think BHR would speed up the process, get everyone in and go from there. It hasn't happened. The closer the closing date gets without offers of jobs to those clinical staff and Evergreen employees who are going to be staying on, the likelihood of a possible "take it or leave it" offer is presented. (Yes, this is cynical, but do you believe BHR will treat these 'Evergreen' employees any better than the unionized ones they have?)
There are a lot of people to blame for this - the county and Evergreen itself. The ones who are being affected by this is the clinical staff and their clients. They didn't deserve this, but they're getting the short end of it. They and their families deserve better and the county and Evergreen's upper management let them down.
Let's hope re-election time doesn't come too soon for those in the county or public work is offered for those who doomed Evergreen from the inside. There's no forgive and forget from this angry husband and I have a very long memory.
******
If you want to read everything so far on this, here's an archive link to all of the stories in The Daily World: Evergreen Counseling Closing stories
posted by R. Burns at 9/22/2007 02:53:00 PM
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