BUTLER TWP — At midnight Jan. 1, Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services took over the Irene Stacy Community Mental Health Clinic and Butler County’s mental health contracts.

“As far as I know, it all went smoothly,” said county human services director Joyce Ainsworth.

The switch occurred after the county revoked its contracts with Irene Stacy in October because of concerns about the clinic’s financial state. The contracts Irene Stacy had with the county totaled about $1 million and were about 70 percent of its income.

Without those contracts the clinic said it could not continue operating.

Last week, the county commissioners approved 21 contracts with C.A.R.E. Center and Diversified Human Services — which are subsidiaries of SPHS of Washington County — for mental health and drug and alcohol services.

Ainsworth said SPHS is providing the same services Irene Stacy did. The services are in the same facilities, and the facilities will retain the Irene Stacy name.

“It’s very early, but so far, so good,” Ainsworth said of the transition.

Irene Stacy serves 2,000 clients at four facilities. The main campus on Hillvue Drive has outpatient services and offices and operates during normal business hours.

There are two group homes in Butler and a transitional care facility on the VA Butler Healthcare campus. These three facilities operate 24/7.

Ainsworth said human services staff members were on hand Dec. 31 at the 24/7 facilities to ease the transition and answer questions for clients.

Luther Sheets, COO of SPHS, said making sure that care continued for Irene Stacy’s 2,000 clients was essential.

“First and foremost, on this issue, was to have a smooth transition,” Sheets said. “It was as close to seamless as possible.”

Under the previous management, Irene Stacy had about 140 employees. Now it has 62 with 56 being former Irene Stacy staff members. About another dozen people have job offers that have not been accepted yet, Sheets said.

“We have several positions that have not been filled yet, including those for outpatient clinicians, residential program workers, intake workers and clerical staff,” Sheets said.

He said SPHS plans to have 90 to 95 staff members there. Sheets said the reason for the fewer employees is there eventually will be positions in accounting, maintenance, information technology and human resources that will be handled centrally by SPHS.

The on-site, day-to-day administration of the facilities is being handled by Lyndsay Burrik, director of clinical operations, and Joe Hauser, director of residential programs. Hauser was the most recent executive director of Irene Stacy.

They will be under the direct supervision of SPHS CEO Jeff Mascara for now.

Sheets said SPHS has about 900 employees total.

SPHS, which was founded in 1964, has human services contracts in Washington, Westmoreland, Greene and Fayette counties.

Jan Taper, director of behavior health/developmental services for Washington County, said SPHS has had mental health contracts in that county for a long time.

It is one of the three mental health service providers for that county, and some of the services it provides include outpatient programs, partial hospitalization, residential programs and crisis and emergency services.

“They really and truly provide a good deal of services for our county,” Taper said.

She said SPHS is innovative and is always willing to look for new ways of doing things or new services to provide.

“They’re very proactive to work with,” Taper said.

When Mayview State Hospital closed in 2008, and the bulk of responsibility for continuing mental health services fell to the counties, Taper said SPHS was helpful and “really stepped up” in helping the county.

Because Butler County canceled Irene Stacy’s contracts, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November.

Federal bankruptcy court filings show the clinic has several large debts. Irene Stacy owes $117,000 to NexTier Bank for unspecified reasons. It owes $24,000 more to NexTier for credit card use.

It owes $101,000 to Highmark for unspecified reasons, $30,500 to the Cerner Corp. of Kansas City for unspecified reasons, $29,000 to W.K. Thomas and Associates of Butler for unspecified reasons and $28,000 to West Penn Power for utilities.

For the real estate that Irene Stacy owns, SPHS will pay a lease for an undetermined amount of time. That money will help Irene Stacy pay off its debt.

Irene Stacy owns the Hillvue Drive location and one of the group homes. The other group home is owned by the county, and the transition care building is owned by the county while the VA owns the property.

Ainsworth said she could not comment on the specifics of Irene Stacy’s financial situation.