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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dshs To Supervise Adult Boarding Homes Legislative Leaders Agree To Give Agency Temporary Power To Protect Patients; Special Commission To Investigate Long-Term Solutions

Hal Spencer Associated Press

Legislative leaders said Friday they will go along with Gov. Gary Locke’s demand to give exclusive oversight of adult boarding homes to the Department of Social and Health Services, but only temporarily.

Under legislation expected to reach the House floor next week, DSHS, not the Department of Health, would be charged with inspecting, monitoring and enforcing regulations in the state’s 440 adult boarding homes.

The plan would give DSHS the task of protecting the 18,000 boarding home residents for one year, beginning in July.

The measure also would set up a special commission to look into long-term ways to improve health and safety at the homes.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Phil Dyer, R-Issaquah, got new energy with the investigation of the rape of an 87-year-old man at a Tukwila boarding home. A fellow resident has been arrested.

The health department, already under fire for its performance in monitoring boarding homes, was largely blamed for failing to protect the victim.

Kim Patrick Daly, a 43-year-old developmentally disabled resident of the Linden Lea Lodge, was charged Feb. 19 with second-degree rape and indecent liberties. He is accused of repeatedly raping the victim over a 12-year period. Daly pleaded innocent Monday and is being held on $100,000 bail at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.

Pushed by state Long-Term Care Ombudsman Kary Hyre, Locke earlier this week said if lawmakers didn’t transfer control of boarding homes exclusively to DSHS, he would do it by executive order.

House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, and other lawmakers said they would not endorse such a transfer, arguing that DSHS is no more fit to take on the task than the Health Department.

But by Friday, they had relented, said House Majority Leader Barbara Lisk, R-Zillah. But only up to a point.

The legislation, which will be in the form of an amendment to HB2410, would give DSHS oversight authority of boarding homes only for a year, starting July 1. The authority would lapse unless lawmakers next year voted to extend it.

Dyer’s House Health Care Committee, in a fact-finding session with state agency officials and others Friday, learned that the causes and conditions behind the rape are far more complicated than simply the failure of the Health Department to properly monitor the facility.

They learned that it was DSHS that placed Daly, a known sex offender, into the facility in the first place.

The agency’s Division of Developmental Disabilities was charged with monitoring Daly, who had a history of child sexual abuse, until the division gave up the task in 1992 without explanation.

At that point, nobody was in charge of Daly, who was allowed to stay at the home partly in exchange for working there, said Arnold Scherler, the home’s director.

Health officials said DSHS never told them about Daly’s history.

The victim - a resident since 1979 who is mildly developmentally disabled and suffers from alcohol dementia and memory loss - gave no hint there was a problem, Scherler said.

xxxx RAPE INVESTIGATION The legislation got new energy with the investigation of the rape of an 87-year-old man at a Tukwila boarding home. The health department was largely blamed for failing to protect the victim, who was repeatedly raped over a 12-year period.