Topeka ? Atty. Gen. Phill Kline has reached a settlement with the Menninger Clinic designed to continue psychiatric care for indigent patients.

Kline announced the deal Wednesday, worth between $4 million and $10 million. The assets will be placed in a charitable foundation that will provide continuing services in the Topeka area once Menninger closes in early June.

“The agreement ensures that vulnerable populations in Kansas will not be forgotten,” said Kline, adding that Menninger officials were cooperative.

The clinic, founded in 1925 by Dr. Karl Menninger, his brother and father, is moving in June to Houston to join a partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital.

“We are pleased that Mr. Kline supports Menninger’s efforts to ensure a continuum of mental health services remains available to Topekans and to Kansans,” said Ian Aitken, Menninger’s president and chief executive officer.

The foundation controlling the assets will be appointed by Kline, although he said he would involve Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and legislative leaders.

The exact dollar amount in the foundation will not be determined until the sale of Menninger properties, including its 50-acre campus in northwest Topeka, is complete.

Kline said the foundation would provide services to the community once Menninger opens its operations June 3 in Houston.

“I think it’s impossible to replace a Menninger,” he said.

A condition of the settlement transfers one piece of Menninger property worth $600,000 to the Florence Crittenton Services of Topeka to provide treatment for teenage mothers.

In addition, Menninger interests worth $24.2 million in services provided in the Kansas City area will be transferred to Menorah Medical Center, Overland Park Regional Medical Center, North Kansas City Hospital and Mill Creek Substance Abuse Center.

Under long-standing legal doctrine in Kansas, when a nonprofit organization becomes for-profit, it must compensate the state for the loss of nonprofit assets. That’s because, in theory, the assets of a charity belong to the people.

That issue arose recently in the sale of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Health Midwest hospital chain to for-profit HCA Inc., of Nashville, Tenn. Health Midwest owned three hospitals in Kansas.

Menninger’s status isn’t changing once it moves to Houston, but Kline said there was an issue of what donors to the famed psychiatric clinic wanted when they gave their money.

Sebelius had not seen the settlement, but she said she was aware of it.

“I think pursuing the charitable trust interests is a good idea when we’re about to lose assets in the state,” she said Wednesday during a bill signing in Topeka.

The nonprofit Menninger Foundation serves as a parent corporation for the Menninger Clinic, which runs the treatment programs, and the Menninger Fund, which manages an endowment to support education and research.