PAULS VALLEY, OK -- Many state funded programs across Oklahoma have felt the pinch over the past year due to budget cuts, including the Southern Oklahoma Resource Center in Pauls Valley. It just narrowly escaped a motion to close the facility on the last day of the legislative session in May. Monday, lawmakers and citizens on both sides of the issue came together to discuss the future of the SORC.

"This was a good meeting. The problem we're facing right now is that on the one hand the individual cost to operate SORC is a very expensive process in comparison with what we do elsewhere inside the developmental disabled community," said Senator Brian Crain, of Tulsa.

Crain says recent figures from Department of Human Services show that the state could save $40,000 dollars per patient a year by closing the SORC, which serves the developmentally disabled, and placing the current 139 patients in a community setting.

"Where what you're doing is taking the same nurse who's taking care of three people at once, rather than what you may have in an institutional setting, it provides for some economies of sale and really helps us extend our dollar out further," Crain said.

Family member Carol Thompson says her brother and many of the other patients require constant care and attention that could not be guaranteed outside of SORC.

"We just want them to live in a place where people care for him," Thompson said. "We're not able to do it--I'm not able to do it--and I'm a nurse. I couldn't take care of them 24 hours a day like they do."

Thompson says closing the facility would not only displace the current residents, but would also take away an option for the more than 5,700 Oklahomans on the waiting list to receive state services. And she feels that the discussion Monday helped bring a lot of those concerns to light

"It was very compassionate and I really felt like they heard us and because they saw us here and our families," said Thompson.

Senator Crain says the testimonals given at the meeting were well received, but says the decision of whether to keep the facility open will come after November elections.

For now, the SORC will remain open.

"It'll be a part of the budget process where we fund our priorities without as much money as there was this year," Crain said.