The Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo appears to be in the clear, at least for now, after regulators this month issued a stern warning that patients were in “immediate jeopardy” because of staffing shortages.

The Colorado Department of Human Services also announced Thursday that the hospital’s leader, Ron Hale, submitted his resignation but will stay on until July 9 to help with the transition. DHS would not comment further on Hale’s decision.

He began work there in January 2015 after serving as a psychiatric hospital administrator in Alaska.

Nancy VanDeMark, the state director of behavioral health, said the 450-bed psychiatric hospital has received preliminary approve of its staffing plan and expects a final approval soon.

At risk is about $12 million from Medicaid and Medicare from the hospital’s $91 million annual budget, she said.

To get staffing ratios to the one-to-one levels required for some patients by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, administrators suspended a residence program for people with co-existing mental health and addiction needs to shift its 18 staff members to the larger hospital.

They also suspended requests for leave, implemented mandatory overtime, suspended comp time, shifted work schedules and put in other measures that VanDeMark is confident can serve as a short-term fix. The hospital also will reduce the wait period between someone applying, going through the screening and getting to work.

“We are on a path, we have a plan,” VanDeMark told Colorado Politics Thursday.

The staffing problem is not new, but it’s gotten worse as the economy has gotten better, she said. Not enough people in the state’s 10th largest county are willing to work with the state’s incarcerated mentally ill. The Circle Program was shuttered, at least temporarily, because it’s one of the few that doesn’t include court-mandated patients.

VanDeMark said the hospital will continue to look for efficiencies, while reaching out to prospective employees through job fairs and other staffing avenues. She said administrators also are examining signing bonuses, better starting wages and workplace incentives.

Pueblo-area lawmakers have been supportive of finding fixes, but VanDeMark said it’s too soon to say if funding for more staff or operations is part of the mix.

“We continue to work with the governor’s office and the General Assembly to find any solution to the problem that might be available to us,” VanDeMark said.