SELAH, Wash. (AP) - Local politicians have promised parents and staff members that they will do everything possible to keep open the Yakima Valley School, a state home for the profoundly developmentally disabled.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has proposed closing the school by 2011 and moving its 88 residents into community living settings to save money.

Yakima's fiscally conservative legislators applauded the Democratic governor's no-new-taxes budget, but didn't hesitate to try and protect a local institution that provides union-wage jobs and nursing-level care to a vulnerable population.

"We need as a state to provide this level of care," Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, said during a news conference in the foyer of the five-story, red-brick building on Tuesday. "I cannot believe that closing this school and moving patients can be a good thing by any measure."

The original facility was built in 1947 as a tuberculosis hospital and converted to a residential facility for individuals with developmental disabilities in 1958. Over the years, residents have been moved into 15 separate duplex cottages on campus, each with about eight beds.

The governor's budget estimates closing the school would save about $1 million over two years. Patients would be relocated to community settings or other facilities.

The Arc of Washington, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of the developmentally disabled, suggests the state could save even more money with community care.

A recent report to the Legislature found the annual cost in 2004 of a community bed came to $126,000 compared to $147,000 for institutional care. The most recent annual cost per patient at Yakima Valley School was $172,500.

Their care is funded equally by state and federal Medicaid funds.

In 2008, Arc estimated those figures at $61,127 for community living, compared with $186,577 for the state's five residential institutions, including the Yakima Valley School. Arc's figures were based on data from the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Sue Elliott, Arc executive director, said the organization supports closing Yakima Valley School and similar facilities because the concept of having the developmentally disabled live in a state institution is obsolete.

"Over time, the way people view the developmentally disabled has changed," Elliott said. "Even people with significant disabilities are accepted and thrive in community living situations."

Parents of adult children at the Yakima Valley School strongly disagree. Anne Kruger's daughter, Theresa, 35, has lived at the school since she was 8. Theresa is nonverbal and fed through a tube.

"The caregivers there know her and communicate with her through eye contact," she said.

That personal touch would be lost at a group home where employees may not earn much more than the minimum wage, Kruger said.