MILLEDGEVILLE — Upset over the recent announcements of program-wide layoffs in Adult Mental Health Services, Central State Hospital employees came together Wednesday to console one another and make a plan to express their grievances to local elected and departmental officials.

About 75 Central State Hospital employees, retirees and community members gathered at Flagg Chapel Baptist Church Wednesday to begin working through the feelings of anger and loss caused by the shuttering of the Adult Mental Health Services program, one of the longest running services provided at the 168-year-old Central State Hospital, and the widespread layoffs recently announced by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Throughout the meeting, which lasted roughly an hour-and-a-half, employees talked about next steps after receiving the separation notices informing employees that they no longer have jobs at Central State, ways of organizing to try and fight the program closing and their feelings about the way the department informed them of the layoffs.

“After 33 years and eight months of service, I got a separation notice Monday telling me I am going to be terminated,” Edward Jackson Jr. told The Union-Recorder. “It’s totally dehumanizing; we’ve invested many years at Central State Hospital, and I feel more should have been done to accommodate the employees.”

Jackson said he got more information about the Adult Mental Health Services closing and subsequent layoffs from the local newspapers than he did from hospital administration.

“I feel they lied to us because they said they would be able to put classified employees in other departments [when they first announced the discontinuation of mental health services at CSH in January],” he said. “Employees found out that wasn’t the case when they read it in the newspaper.”

Service Employee International Union-National Association of Government Employees representative Carolyn Simmons encouraged employees to work with one another to ensure that classified employees file appeals of their separations and that all non-classified employees join a group grievance filing concerning the layoffs. Simmons is organizing another meeting tentatively scheduled for this Saturday to assist employees in filing their appeals and grievances.

“Classified employees need to do their appeals almost immediately,” Simmons said. “People need to be calling and contacting people to get them to come to this meeting.”

Simmons asked employees to call her at (478) 288-0608 to learn more about the appeals and grievance filing process and to learn more about the meeting tentatively scheduled for Saturday.

Former Milledgeville Mayor Floyd Griffin said people need to reach out to local officials such as state Rep. Rusty Kidd, I-Milledgeville, and state Sen. Johnny Grant, R-Milledgeville, to explain to them their concerns and push them to hold DBHDD officials accountable for these decisions that are affecting entire communities.

But others were not so willing to rely on Milledgeville’s legislative delegation in this situation.

Local talk show host, business owner and democratic booster Quentin T. Howell was quick to lay the blame for the gradual disintegration of Central State at the feet of a republican-controlled legislature in Atlanta, saying there were never state worker furloughs under 139 years of democratic control in the General Assembly.

“Just because there are hard times, doesn’t mean you have to hurt people more,” Howell said. “This is not something that just happened, the ball got started rolling years ago.”

In response to questions about Wednesday’s impromptu employee meeting DBHDD Spokesman Tom Wilson asked Central State employees to remember that despite the layoffs, the department is working to transfer employees into appropriate positions within DBHDD and create avenues for employees to utilize the services of the Department of Labor to transition into the next job opportunity.

But in this unfortunate situation he remained adamant that DBHDD’s first obligation continues to be the proper care of mental health consumers.

“The one positive in this situation is that no one with a mental illness will lose services,” he said. “Those people who can be better served in the community will be served there and those people who need to remain in the hospital setting will continue to receive services in that setting.

“Everyone needs to understand that we are able to do more with that limited mental health services money in Baldwin County when we are not paying large sums to preserve the bricks and mortar [of the Powell Building],” he said.

Sen. Grant called The Union-Recorder Wednesday afternoon to say that he could not attend the meeting as he did not learn about it until after the General Assembly was already in session in Atlanta. But he asked anyone who feels that they are being treated unfairly to call him or his offices in Atlanta at (404) 656-0082 so that he can work with them to right the situation.

“If anyone feels they are not being treated fairly, please contact me,” he said. “We are not going to be able to stop every job loss, but we will work to ensure everything they are entitled to comes their way and that all the employment rules are being followed. I want to help in any way I can.”

Grant also expressed frustration with the way DBHDD has handled the situation.

“I am disappointed that it has taken Behavioral Health so long to get personnel people down there [to CSH] to deal with this situation,” he said. “They should have had people there two weeks ago to aid in this transition. Scenarios like the ones that are being described to me should never happen. It is inexcusable, and we ought to have our act together so that employees are not treated in this way.”

As the situation continues to unfold, many employees are beginning to focus on what can be done to get themselves back on a track that leads to future employment.

Howell reminded people that the Central Georgia Democratic Coalition will holding a large job and career forum from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Arts & Sciences Building on the Georgia College & State University campus in downtown Milledgeville.

“At this forum there might not be that one large company who will be hiring for 500 positions, but there will probably be 50 or 60 employers looking to hire one or two jobs,” he said.

For more information on this weekend’s job and career forum, call Howell at (912) 656-7841 or locally at (478) 414-1120.