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While there are marginal cost savings to the state of Iowa in connection with the possible closing of the Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute (MHI), there are also impacts to the local economy related to the loss of jobs and the added expense for patients and their families.
Each red dot on this map represents the residence of a patient at Mount Pleasant Mental Health Institute. Patient and family travel was one of the aspects considered by ISU economists as they researched the economic impact of the state's four facilities. (Source: ISU Department of Economics)
“Closing Mount Pleasant yields a localized loss of 196.3 total jobs and $8.97 million in labor income,” wrote David Swenson and Liesl Eathington, part of Iowa State University’s Department of Economics and co-authors of a study on the economic impacts of the state’s four mental health institutes.
Since the legislature mandated that a plan for closing one of the facilities must also include a clear vision of how existing services and beds could be maintain, Swenson and Eathington estimate that the receiving facility would gain 97.5 jobs and $5.607 million in labor income.
Closing of the facility in Mount Pleasant, according to the study, would lead to:
Since the Iowa Department of Human Services has submitted its plan to the state legislature and has recommended closure of the Mount Pleasant facility, the information pulled from the Swenson-Eathington study for this report is specific to that region. It is, however, worth noting that there were significant economic impacts associated with closure of any of the four state-run institutes, and that in most scenarios considered by the economists, closing Mount Pleasant provided the least economic woe for the state.
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