BURRILLVILLE – Plans laid out in 2023 for improvements to the Burrillville campus of Eleanor Slater Hospital could be in jeopardy according to state officials, who told legislators this week that they are evaluating other sites for the facility, citing escalating costs.
The recent development came as surprising news to local officials, who advocated for years to save the 120-year-old facility, which serves patients in need of long-term, acute care.
“I was very shocked,” said Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz of the statements, made during a Senate Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 10. “If there are talks about Zambarano moving somewhere else, the administration should be forthright, open and honest.”
At meetings with staff, patients and residents of the facility in 2023, officials with Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities & Hospitals laid out plans for the location. The project was set to include construction of a new, 100-bed building on the sprawling 460-acre Zambarano campus, and locals were assured that space will remain for the facility’s current residents, while more beds would be added.
As the project went into design that year, the costs for Zambarano improvements were estimated at $197 million, with the first $108 million budgeted in 2023 and 2024.
But according to a report this week in The Providence Journal, state building officials now say those costs have escalated to $300 million, and they have hired consultants with The Faulkner Group and AECOM to “evaluate other site and development concepts.”
Dan Meuse of the Faulkner Consulting Group also emailed Burrillville Town Council President Donald Fox on Tuesday with the news.
“As you probably know, the costs for the Eleanor Slater Hospital modernization for the Long Term Acute Care Hospital facility at Zambarano have significantly increased since the initial funding was allocated in 2023,” noted Meuse. “The state has initiated a new study to update the LTACH bed needs assessment and to review construction and financial options.”
Meuse noted his firm plans to have a “broader public conversation at the end of February,” about the hospital, but wants to first meet with town officials. Town Manager Michael Wood confirmed the group has scheduled a meeting for next week to discuss Zambarano’s future.
de la Cruz notes that she’s been an advocate for improvements to the Burrillville facility since she was first contacted by constituents with concerns following her election in 2018.
“That’s when really, the work kind of began,” she said.
At the time, she says she wondered, “How is a senator from a northwest corner, and a freshman in the wrong political party going to get attention on this?”
The issue of securing funding to protect the state’s most vulnerable patients, de la Cruz said, wasn’t high priority for many of her colleagues.
“I thought, there’s got to be other people out there who care about this issue,” de la Cruz said.
The freshman senator found an ally in Democratic Sen. Louis DiPalma, who served at the time as chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules, Government Ethics and Oversight. DiPalma held oversight hearings on the hospital, which included information on the financial impact of having to send Zambarano’s high need patients to facilities in neighboring Massachusetts.
“That costs Rhode Islander’s more money,” de la Cruz said. “Not only was this the right thing to do because this is a vulnerable population, but it was the right financial decision.”
Now the senator, who represents District 23 in Burrillville, North Smithfield and Glocester, is questioning who initiated the effort to look elsewhere.
“Why weren’t we notified?” de la Cruz asked. “Who’s having these discussions and why aren’t we having them openly?”
de la Cruz said she’s been apprised of numerous updates on the hospital project since 2023, but when she’s asked questions, she’s often had trouble getting straight answers from officials in the state Division of Capital Asset Management.
“This is month after month,” she said. “That was very frustrating.”
The exception, she said, has been hosital administrators.
“They have been transparent from beginning to end,” she said.
At the meeting on Tuesday, de la Cruz said she also learned that $26 million that was on track to be allocated to the hospital project in this year’s budget was no longer available.
“What I want to know is: who is making these decisions? Is the governor aware this is happening?” de la Cruz asked. “If we wait another two years, are they saying that the thing is going to cost $500 million? Where did they shuffle that money to?”
Little has been provided in way of explanation as to why initial estimates for the work were so far off mark, and the state has already spent $8 million on design work and consultants for the Burrillville project, according to reports.
“This is publicly funded,” said de la Cruz. “The taxpayers need to know why is this so expensive. I feel like there’s smoke and mirrors. I can’t get a straight answer.”
DiPalma, meanwhile, has left the oversight committee to take on a role as chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance.
“What’s a little bit disappointing to me is that we don’t have robust oversight hearings anymore,” said de la Cruz.
Still, she said, she’ll be having talks with DiPalma in hopes to better understand the funding issue. de la Cruz noted while there’s no official plan to move the hospital project, “I think there might be people who want to.”
Final decisions, she noted, will come down to Gov. Dan McKee and his staff, and de la Cruz said she remains hopeful a plan can be worked out to keep the campus in Burrillville.
“We’re going to continue to pursue answers,” she said.
The state may pursue different models for long‑term acute care, possibly outside the current Zambarano plan.
Following through with plans to close.
De la Cruz ran her campaign last year saying she got the funds while The governor said he had them . She is showing that she didn’t have the funds . Time to work together Yes it’s possible . Give and take . Democrats and Republicans. Get on the same page and show the facts and stare them correctly. Hopefully Zambarano will survive .
I have 2 articles from when Obama was in where he states he wants to put “affordable Housing” in Small Towns to “enrich” them. I can’t say anymore of what he wanted or this won’t get published…
State general assembly – 93% democrat. They could care less about the impact on Burrillville and they could care less about helping the patients in need. But on the other hand, they keep shoving the “affordable housing” mandate down every rural town’s throats, trampling local zoning ordinances and infrastructure burdens. The Dems in charge really have it out for conservative, rural areas.
Meanwhile, I hear that the Mr. Potato Head removal is gaining strength and more work is being done to make anything North of Cumberland a “Sanctuary Refuge.”