Officials with the Missouri state mental hospital at Fulton are talking up the idea of expanding the hospital to accomodate mentally ill people with violence problems. . .people who now are either on the street or in prison.

The Fulton state hospital is Missouri’s only maximum- and intermediate-security psychiatric hospital.  It’s also the oldest public mental hospital west of the Mississippi River.

The state Department of Mental Health is proposing a new 300-bed, high-security facility at a cost of about 211 million dollars.
Officials say current facilities at Fulton are so old that a new building would save about 3-million dollars a year in utilities, staffing and workers’ compensation.

Governor Nixon and lawmakers this year are considering bonds to pay for capital improvements at college campuses, state facilities and parks.

- Bob Hamilton, KMOX News