Sprinkler mandate exempts many group homes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- After a fire killed 11 people at a Missouri group home, state officials and health-care advocates called for mandatory sprinkler systems at all residential care facilities.

The Missouri Legislature responded with a watered-down sprinkler mandate that still could exempt more than 60 percent of the facilities now lacking sprinklers.

The legislation, passed overwhelmingly last week, excludes existing residential care and assisted living facilities with 20 or fewer residents from having to retrofit their buildings for sprinklers.

About half of Missouri's facilities -- 310 of the 616 -- currently lack sprinkler systems. The bill's exemption means that just 120 of those would be forced to install sprinklers, according to Department of Health and Senior Services figures provided to The Associated Press. The bill gives those facilities until Dec. 31, 2012, to comply.

The Anderson Guest House for the mentally ill and disabled had 32 residents but no sprinkler system when a smoldering attic fire spread and destroyed the southwest Missouri facility on Nov. 27, killing 10 residents and one of the two staff members on duty. The facility had seven smoke detectors but no heat sensors in the attic.

After the fire, Gov. Matt Blunt directed the state health and mental health departments to review the state's oversight of residential care facilities. They recommended requiring complete fire alarm and sprinkler systems, and Blunt quickly embraced the sprinkler mandate.

"The legislation is a huge step forward and essentially meets the governor's requirements that facilities be required to have sprinklers," Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson said Wednesday night. "He basically got 95 percent of what he wanted to better protect group home residents, so that really is a great step forward."

She said Blunt plans to sign the bill.

The fire alarm provisions prevailed in the Legislature. But cost concerns led senators to add the sprinkler system exemption, though few were aware at the time exactly how large of an exemption it was.

"It definitely falls far short of what they needed to do," Jo Anne Morrow, president of the Missouri Coalition for Quality Care, an advocate for long-term care patients, said Wednesday.

"We recognize that a lot of these homes provide very good care. A lot of them don't, though, and you have to have standards across the board," Morrow said.

The National Fire Protection Association, which publishes fire and building safety standards, recommends sprinkler systems for group homes with more than eight residents. All too often, governments strengthen their safety standards only after tragedies like the Missouri fire, said Christian Dubay, the association's vice president and chief engineer.

Although the Missouri bill falls short of the association's guidelines, "it's good to see that the Legislature acted and is headed in the right direction," Dubay said.

The sprinkler exemption was added to the bill by Sen. Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, who feared that smaller facilities could be forced out of business because of the cost of installing sprinklers, or be forced to raise prices so high that some residents could no longer afford to live there.

Kerri Hock, executive director of the Missouri Assisted Living Association, said one Kansas City facility with fewer than 20 residents had gotten a $25,000 to $30,000 estimate to install a sprinkler system. A commercial-grade sprinkler system could be twice that, she said.

The association had supported a comprehensive sprinkler mandate, as long as it was accompanied by state aid. The bill allows facilities to receive low-cost state loans to install sprinkler systems.

Hock was surprised Wednesday to learn how many facilities were exempt.

"We strongly encourage those that have 20 and fewer residents that they take advantage of this funding mechanism when it becomes available, even though they don't have to," she said.

Sponsoring Rep. Kevin Wilson, a Republican whose southwest Missouri district includes Anderson, also had pushed for a full sprinkler mandate. The exemption sends the wrong message, he said.

But Wilson noted there is no exception to the bill's requirement that facilities install complete fire alarm systems by Dec. 31, 2008. They will have to include interconnected smoke detectors, heat detectors, manual alarm stations at each exit and attendant's station, audible and visual alarm indicators, and systems that automatically ring a local fire department or dispatching agency.

Wilson said such a fire alarm system likely would have saved lives at the Anderson facility.

"We've accomplished what we set out to do, which is make these facilities safer," Wilson said. "Are they as safe as I would have liked? No."