LEWISTON – Lose your benefits or lose your job.

That’s the ultimatum that Richardson Hollow, the state’s largest in-home caregiver to people with mental illnesses, has given to about 45 of its workers.

In an emergency meeting Friday, bosses told workers that they had until Monday morning to decide.

The move shocked workers, who wept as health insurance, vacation time and other benefits were taken away.

“We’re all scared,” said Vicki Boehm, 57, of Greene. She was told last week that she suffers from a dangerous heart ailment. This Friday, her health insurance will expire. “What the hell are we going to do?”

The move also worries the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which has been scrutinizing Richardson Hollow’s finances for months. If too many people quit, as Boehm and others have vowed, care to ill people could be interrupted.

“That’s my bottom-line concern,” said Brenda Harvey, commissioner of the state DHHS.

The Richardson Hollow program, known as “daily living support services,” provides people with sometimes-severe mental illness with a visit by a trained caregiver. They make sure their clients are taking care of themselves, from taking all their prescribed medications to cooking their meals, from bathing to cleaning their home.

Worker Roger Gagnon of Mechanic Falls worries that more visits will be either missed or shorter than needed. He plans to quit and believes many others will.

“I feel bad for the clients because they are the ones getting hurt,” he said.

The move was made to prevent the program from shutting down entirely, said Linda Hertell, Richardson Hollow’s founder and its president and CEO.

“It’s an awful decision,” she said Saturday. “I delayed this as long as I could. There is no money to spare.”

“(The workers) at least have a job,” she said. “The choice was to have no money at all.”

Hertell turned blame for much of the money pinch back on the state.

For six years, the state reimbursement for home visits has not risen, continuing at about $30 per hour. Meanwhile, the cost of benefits has gone up, as have wages. Hertell’s in-home workers make an average wage of $14.20 an hour, she said.

However, other social service organizations have managed, Harvey said. And Richardson Hollow’s woes are not new to her.

For several months, her department has been watching Hertell and the company.

The Department of Health and Human Services, Harvey said, has requested an audit of its books, looking for another reason for Richardson Hollow’s financial problems.

Meanwhile, Harvey learned that the company had talked with other providers about a possible sale or merger. Hertell confirmed those talks on Saturday.

And reports have been coming into the state about workplace problems.

Richardson Hollow has a fine reputation for its care, Harvey said. But recently, she said, she has heard worker complaints that paychecks were late and that morale had fallen sharply.

Harvey, who was on vacation last week, said she had no advance warning that Richardson Hollow’s workers would receive an ultimatum.

Neither did the workers.

Carmella McCafferty of South Paris figured Friday’s meeting was going to be good news.

She expected it was going to be an announcement that the company was going to settle up on owed mileage checks and back pay.

It took only a couple of minutes, as bosses described financial stress, to know that bad news was coming.

“They just took all our benefits,” McCafferty said. “They were saying, ‘We’re taking everything we possibly can away.'”

They were told that if they decided to quit, they would be ineligible for unemployment compensation. If they chose to stay, they would be contract help at the same wage as before. They would not be reimbursed for mileage, nor would they be paid for travel time between clients.

Many people cried. Most were just shocked, she said.

Gagnon, who has worked at Richardson Hollow for six years, bought a bottle on the way home.

“I’m not a drinker, but I got good and drunk,” he said. “I’m freaked.”

Hertell didn’t attend the meeting.

“I know a lot of the people personally,” she said. She hired some of them. Her staff worried about the emotional toll she’d face if she attended, Hertell said.

“It’s very upsetting to me,” she said Saturday.

However, she was part of the planning and had faced other cuts. In early February, the company sent home a group of its top managers because of financial concerns.

“Eight to 10 of the highest-paying jobs in the company were eliminated,” Hertell said. She and some of the other remaining administrators have forgone checks to meet payroll, she said.

If the workers could have squeezed in more visits in recent months, triggering more reimbursements to the company, maybe the recent change might have been avoided, she said.

Now she wishes she had made the change July 1.

Hertell was proud that the hourly wage will go unchanged, she said. And she regrets the loss of benefits.

“We went through our lawyers,” she said. “They told us we had the right to do this.”

She also consulted the state, she said.

“The Department of Labor told us that we had the right to lower their wages to $6.75 an hour, minimum wage,” she said.

It is little consolation to Boehm, who said she will be unable to afford any health care after Friday. Her heart problems will go unattended, she said.

“It may be legal, but it’s not moral,” Boehm said.

Commissioner Harvey said she plans to send workers from her department to speak with Richardson Hollow leaders on Monday morning.

“If I could get people together sooner, I would,” she said.