A faith based charity is negotiating the purchase of the CHAPS Academy in Shiocton. The equestrian therapy stable was slated to be closed at the end of the month due to financial difficulties.
Rawhide Inc., which offers programs for at risk kids, has begun negotiating a purchase of CHAPS. Rawhide says they are looking to complement the mental health counseling that is already being provided at CHAPS.
On Jan 9, CHAPS Board President Mary Downs announced the closing in a press release: “For 14 years, CHAPS Academy has worked tirelessly to provide life-saving care to more 25 hundred people. But despite our best efforts, we can no longer survive in this broken system.”
Down’s said that the operating costs were too high and they weren’t getting enough commercial insurance to support.
“The gap between the services that we provide and the reimbursement that we receive, that reimbursement gap has averaged about 20 thousand dollars a month,” Downs says. “Which means that for a year, CHAPS would be required to raise about a quarter of a million dollars every year, to fill that gap.”
