Outside groups ask state to consolidate its social services

The report is largely a call for deeper reorganization of the system. Some of the recommendations are already underway or have been actively discussed.

Still, the authors emphasized that past reform efforts have often faltered because of bureaucratic inertia, union resistance, or political malaise, and the authors hope to use the current fiscal crisis into an opportunity for fundamental change.

“The reality of the long-term finances of the state dictate this is where we need to go,’’ said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and one of the report’s chief authors.

The report calls for the 149 individual offices of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services — which oversees agencies dedicated to mental health, public health, welfare benefits, child protection, and disabilities, among other services — to fit into 20 to 24 larger area offices. That change alone, the report said, would save about $15 million a year by reducing real estate costs and cutting roughly 170 positions.

Some streamlining has just taken place. Yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby visited a newly created center in Hyannis that brings together staff from the departments of Transitional Assistance, Mental Health, and Developmental Services, as well as the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission. She praised the move as saving $86,000 a year, plus bringing many important services into “one convenient location’’ for struggling families.

The report also identified savings achieved in the shutdown of the Fernald Developmental Center in Waltham and the closing of Westborough State Hospital and a small psychiatric facility in Quincy. It also called for closing five facilities run by the Department of Developmental Services in Baldwinville, Palmer, Shrewsbury, Danvers, and Wrentham, as well as two mental health facilities in Fall River and Pocasset. Doing so would save about $50 million annually, Widmer said.

Michael Grunko — president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 509, one of the state’s largest unions for human services employees — said he is eager to read the report, though is skeptical about the size of the projected savings. He said many reformers fail to fully consider the new costs of diverting patient services to private vendors.

But Marylou Sudders, head of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and former commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, insisted that such reforms are good, not just for financial reasons, but to ultimately deliver improved and more efficient services to families in community settings.

“The environment is right and ripe for structural change within EOHHS,’’ she said.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.