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ANNAPOLIS — Craig Winslow says he is unable to imagine the situation some parents of students at the John R. Gildner Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents in Rockville now face.

On Wednesday, the state Board of Public Works cut 24 beds and 21 positions at the state-run center for children with emotional disabilities as part of $362 million in cuts and transfers to the fiscal 2010 general fund budget.

Cuts to mental health services eligibility, Medicaid reimbursements, higher education and new state vehicle purchases, as well as the elimination of 112 state jobs, topped the list of the third round of reductions to the current budget, which has now been slashed by more than $1 billion.

Winslow, whose son and daughter both attended RICA, called the move to cut services there "very shortsighted."

Public school hadn't worked for his son, who would act out if he felt threatened. A year at a private school in New Hampshire helped his son better manage his behavior. It also sapped the family's finances, Winslow said.

He and his wife — federal government employees who live in Bethesda — "were pretty much overwhelmed a lot of the time," Winslow said.

When a spot in RICA's residential program opened, the Winslows jumped at the opportunity to enroll their son at the unique hybrid of clinical mental health services and Montgomery County Public Schools curriculum.

They saw his behavior start to turn around. He went from the residential program to a day program, where he could live at home and attend school at RICA during the day.

He graduated four years ago and today is a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., weeks away from his first deployment, to Afghanistan.

He has come such a long way that his father is reluctant to use his first name, knowing that his son doesn't see himself as the kid who needed extra help.

That extra help will not be there for 24 children who will be discharged from RICA's residential program by Jan. 1, after the state ordered $800,000 trimmed from the center's budget.

State health and county school officials are considering whether students can be transitioned back to their home schools or to private-sector residential treatment centers, albeit at lower costs that likely would mean fewer services in the more expensive placements.

"We have students that were found to be in need of residential 24-7 care," said Debra Van Horn, the center's director of community resources and development. "And now we're supposed to identify 24 students that we think could be discharged."

Employees losing jobs at year's end include psychiatrists and nurses, as well as clinical staff, maintenance workers, housekeepers and chefs, Van Horn said. With staff-to-student ratios cut, students who attend the center's day program could be affected as well, she said.

This week's cuts follow the elimination of 16 beds and 10½ positions, all but two of them filled, following $454 million in cuts in August.

In that move, the center was forced to consolidate student housing — going from 72 to 56 beds — but was not forced to discharge students.

Winslow said he sees the downsizing of RICA as a symptom of a system that forces the mentally ill to be in trouble either medically or legally before they are given access to many services.

"These kids are going to be out there," he said. "Why wouldn't you want to do anything you can to educate them?"

Without services, children are more likely to drop out, get in trouble with the law, or worse, Van Horn said.

If the state does not support programs like RICA, "our state and society and our community are going to pay for it in other ways," she said. "You can't forget about them but for so long because they're going to be out there, and they're going to be affecting our world for good or ill."

The latest budget cuts are on top of $736 million in reductions to the fiscal 2010 budget made over two rounds earlier this year. They leave the state with a $123 million cushion against future revenue shortfalls.

More than 40 percent of the savings approved Wednesday — $258.8 million — are in the form of transfers and reversions. That includes a projected $129 million in corporate tax revenues from Constellation Energy Group's recent sale of its nuclear energy assets to Electricite de France that will be put toward the general fund and $11.6 million in projected revenue from the state's recent tax amnesty.

Other transfers include $25 million from the land records fund and $25 million from the rainy day fund.

Among the cuts approved Wednesday are a $21.3 million reduction in Medicaid payments to hospitals and $7.3 million in savings based on lower-than-expected enrollment in the Maryland Children's Health Program.

The plan also includes about $3 million in savings from suspending nonessential new vehicle purchases and reducing travel expenses, and slashes 112 state jobs.

Higher education took $32 million in cuts, including $25 million that the University System of Maryland will transfer to the state general fund and $7 million from the Sellinger Program for private colleges and universities.

The cut will hurt the institutions' ability to provide financial aid to students who are increasingly using the grants in order to pay tuition, said Tina Bjarekull, president of the Maryland Independent College and University Association.

"The financial aid is out the door," Bjarekull said. "What it will do is we will have less financial aid next semester."

Advocates for the developmentally disabled, who endured $29 million in cuts earlier this year, rejoiced Wednesday that they were spared from the latest round of cuts.

But mental health facilities around the state did not fare as well in the latest round, with the board voting to freeze hiring at state facilities and to cut $1 million in funding to local core services through the Mental Hygiene Administration, among the measures.

Another $6.5 million in savings will come from increased scrutiny of mental health service eligibility and of claims for services. The savings represent less than 2 percent of mental health claims, according to a state budget department analysis.