Topeka ? Plans for the departure of Menninger from Topeka could be concluded this summer when the psychiatric clinic picks a medical school partner.

The financially troubled clinic’s plans fell through last August when Menninger announced it could not come to terms with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Methodist Health Care system.

Menninger officials said at the time that the clinic would remain at its 242-acre campus in northwest Topeka at least until this summer, but that it would continue to look for an affiliation with a major medical school.

Menninger is seeking a university partnership because its leaders believe that is the best way to integrate education and research with its mission of providing mental health care.

The clinic’s board of trustees is expected to announce its medical school preference by June 30.

The hunt for a new partner resumed six months ago with the hiring of Bear Stearns & Co. to handle the search process. Thirty-two institutions signed confidentiality agreements to be part of the selection process, said John McKelvey, president and chief executive officer of the Menninger Foundation.

A steering committee narrowed the list to five and then visited those campuses.

“Basically, we’re on schedule,” McKelvey said. “At some point you have to turn this over to the lawyers. That’s when it gets out of our hands.”

McKelvey declined to identify the five institutions because of the confidentiality agreements.

Kansas University was among the institutions asked to submit a proposal to Menninger. But officials from Menninger and the university won’t say whether they have been in negotiations.

“The University of Kansas and Menninger have talked in the past, and we hope that Menninger will stay in the state,” said Lynn Bretz, KU’s director of university relations. She declined to elaborate, citing the confidentiality agreement.

Walt Menninger, the clinic’s former chief executive officer, earlier said the major source of the clinic’s financial problems was the increase of managed health care plans. Those plans managed health care costs by limiting hospitalization, he said.

Clinic officials acknowledged last fall that the operation still was losing money. And Menninger said that the clinic would continue to wind down services and cut its staff to decrease losses. It laid off more than 700 employees in 2000 and 2001.

McKelvey and Ian Aitken, the clinic’s president and chief operational officer, said that Menninger now was breaking even with a census of around 80 patients.

It was unclear how much, if any, of Menninger would remain in Topeka once a medical school partner is selected. One possibility has been moving patient care, research and education but keeping fund-raising efforts in Topeka.

McKelvey said the proposals from the five candidates for partnership varied.

“In some instances, there is a possibility you could maintain the fund-raising operation in Topeka. In others, it wouldn’t make any sense at all,” he said. “Each has a little different approach to what’s going to happen, not just to the fund-raising, but to the foundation itself.”

The Menninger Foundation with assets of $80 million to $90 million could be rolled into another foundation or remain independent.

“There are five different approaches,” McKelvey said, “and none is the same.”