Champaign County

Today's News-Gazette:

The county's lack of financial support has been a sore spot for years among other supporters of the economic development corporation – particularly the cities of Champaign and Urbana. The county board has two representatives on the development group's board of directors, even though the county chips in no money.

In contrast, Champaign gives about $115,000 a year, and Urbana gives about $33,000 a year. The group also gets annual commitments from Rantoul, Savoy, Mahomet, Tolono and Fisher.

Dimit said he felt a $5,000 contribution from the county would be reasonable, given financial pressures the county is facing with its nursing home.

Discuss.

From today's News-Gazette:

A nearly $1.2 million discrepancy in expenses between two county reports is one of at least two financial problems with the county's nursing home that can be fixed, a University of Illinois accountancy professor said Thursday.

"There is a problem with data integrity, but it's a fixable problem," said Rachel Schwartz, who is an unpaid consultant to the county board.

Schwartz outlined two issues with the nursing home finances to members of both the county board finance committee and the nursing home board of directors during a joint committee meeting Thursday night.

I think redstatewannabe has mentioned some concerns with CCNH accounting before, but I can't recall the particulars.

On page 17 of tonight's agenda for the Champaign County Board Finance Committee:

As happened last year, we did not receive several footnotes to the financial statements, or the Management's Discussion and Analysis until the date of this letter (June 27, 2008) from Tony Fabri, the elected County Auditor.  I want to make it clear that no one else beside the elected Auditor is responsible for providing this information to us. The footnotes are considered to be an integral part of the financial statements.  We cannot finalize our review of the financial statements until we receive all of the footnotes.  Also, it forces us to date our opinions as of that late date, perhaps making our firm look bad.  In addition, it puts extreme stress on both us and the Chief Deputy Auditor, who cannot accurately page-number the over 300 page document, print it, and get it bound until we have everything we need in order to provide audit opinions, all of which, under a 30-day extension granted by GFOA, is due June 30, just 3 days after he finally provided the documents.  In our estimation, this simply is not fair to our firm, is not fair to the Chief Deputy Auditor, who puts in an enormous effort trying to get the document published on time, and is not acting responsibly to the County Board.  We ask the County Board to officially name someone other than the elected Auditor to be responsible for these documents being prepared and provided to us and the Chief Deputy Auditor on a more timely basis, so that the report can be issued by May 31, its official date.

Bray, Drake, Liles & Richardson, LLP

Channel 3 did a story on this last night as well.

Just like the headline says, Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden's office has developed new maps for County Board and state Legislative districts, and they're on his website here.  They're looking for feedback, so please give them some.

This is interesting, but could been seen coming for months:

Andrew Buffenbarger resigned from the Champaign County Nursing Home on Monday, only to start work there Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, he's an employee of Management Performance Associates of the St. Louis, which was hired last week at $15,000 a month to manage the nursing home.

As part of the deal, MPA was to supply an administrator acceptable to the county board, which actually pays his $88,150 salary.

No vote was taken at the most recent county board meeting on whether Buffenbarger was acceptable.

Discuss.

From yesterday's News-Gazette:

Purchase of the Lo property means that, out of 19 properties, only one 7-acre piece would remain to be acquired. Schmidt said the local governments are likely going to have to use their "quick-take" eminent domain authority to obtain that property, which he said is owned by a defunct land trust. Under quick take, the city gets immediate control of the property while a purchase price is litigated.

The next phase of the Curtis Road project calls for building a four- and five-lane road for 1 1/2 miles from Wynstone Drive in Champaign to Wesley Avenue in Savoy. It will cost $12.1 million. Of that amount, $5.7 million will be federal funding, with the county paying $3.7 million and Champaign and Savoy paying $1.6 million each.

Discuss.

Today would probably be a good day to not be in the Courthouse.   The County's new courts technology  program is launching and it will be remarkable if it goes smoothly. 

In 1998, when the 1/4 cent sales tax for public safety passed, $250,000 per year was allocated to improve the technology in the criminal justice system.  After reviewing a number of options, the County went with New World Systems with a so called "box" solution that would need to tailored to the needs of Champaign County.  Getting this product out of the box and installed and running in Champaign County has taken about 7 or 8 years. 

The system should incorporate the Sheriff's office, Circuit Clerk, Probation, State's Attorney, Public Defender, and Circuit Judges into one system. This will eliminate needing to reenter court records at each stage in the process.  In addition, the system envisions scanning court documents in order to eliminate transferring files to Courtrooms. 

But whenever you involve this many offices in such a large project there are likely to be problems.  While each of the offices works together, each also has it's own way of doing things.  Because so many of these people are elected officials in their own right, they also don't necessarily have to go along with the program.  For example, if a judge still wants the entire paper court record brought to his courtroom, that's what's going to happen. 

I have little doubt that in the end, hopefully within weeks, the system will be running smoothly.  But the transition could give some  heartburn to more than a few people.  From a public perception, Circuit Clerk Linda Frank stands front and center on this project.  It is her staff that is going to have to inform legal secretaries that  their filing which would have sufficed last week may be lacking this week.  Or that someone with a traffic ticket has had their case postponed because the data didn't make it into the new system.  I give a lot of credit to Linda for pushing forward on this in an election year.  It would have been easy to put off this launch for six months to place it outside the political debate.

One positive for the public is that Linda fought for continued free access to the docket sheets as she has been providing for years.  Some enterprising officials apparently would have liked to go to a pay system.  That free system also is in transition, so don't be surprised if your access this week is sporadic.

No doubt some readers will be at the Courthouse this week.  I'd like to hear comments.

Who are the needy?  Or the poor.  However you want to phrase it. 

That's been a big part of the debate regarding the viability and profitability of the Champaign County Nursing Home.  The debate has been generally focused on Medicaid vs. private pay patients.  Those on medicaid are thought to be poor and more in line with what should be the Nursing Home's mission as a public institution to help those in most need.  Those private pay people can go anywhere and the public nursing home ought not be overloaded with such people.

The reality is much different.  Clearly, a Medicaid resident should be classified as poor.  A few accounting tricks over a lifetime might give you a life of relative affluence while having minimal assets, but this is certainly not the norm.

Private pay individuals are those people that have assets that allow them to afford care.  But many of these people are truly poor, and will only be able to afford care for a limited amount of time.  Here's an example.

Let's say you have income from Social Security of $1200 per month, you've saved $50,000 in IRAs and other retirement funds,  and you've sold your home for a net gain of $100,000.  Under this scenario,  of $150,000 in assets and $1200 in fixed income, I believe that you're a private pay individual.  I'll leave others with more knowledge to fill us in on just how far you  have to "spend down" your assets, but I'm pretty sure it's well below $150,000. 

So your income amounts to about $2,000 per month when you include return on your investment.  Not too bad if you're in assisted living at $2500 per month.  That will last you about 15 years.  But if you're going into a nursing home at $4,000 a month, you'll be tapped out in four years. 

Clearly that person who is private pay is far from being rich.  Not destitute, but clearly a person that fits into the mission of the public Nursing Home to help the "needy".

My experience has been that within the admissions process, assets and income are both given by the prospective resident.  I think this part of the population, those with assets, but undoubtedly on their way to Medicaid, should be included in the discussion on what our mix should be between private pay and Medicaid patients.

For those who don’t know me, I am Corben Rice and I live in Champaign, IL with my lovely wife and 5 young children. I work as a chemist at Isotech Laboratories and I am running for County Board in Champaign Illinois District 5.

I had not anticipated running for public office this year, or any year in the near future.  I had envisioned myself at the ripe age of 60 or 65 retiring, and perhaps running for some local office.  However, this primary season when I went to vote I was disturbed to see that I did not have candidates to vote for in the primary for county board, which means that I won’t have a choice in the general election either.

By default, I would be voting for incumbent democrats, or not voting at all.  I felt cheated.  What kind of democracy do we have if we have no choice when we vote?  That is false democracy and an exercise in futility.  How could the incumbents face the voters and claim to represent them when the voters had no other choice.

To this end, to further democracy in my district, I put myself forward as an alternative choice.  Fellow Republican Will Kyles has also stepped up to the plate and together we are getting out and meeting the voters.  We are finding out what issues are important to them.

I stand on the principles of fiscal responsibility with the idea that tax payers monies are a special trust and cannot be abused or taken for granted.  I understand that taking money out of the economy in the form of taxes hurts employers and workers alike.

We should provide equal treatment under the law and provide equal access to a good education.

With other Republicans in Champaign, Will and I are working on rebuilding the Republican Party in Illinois.  As Tip O’Neill once said,” All politics is local”. 

Please consider supporting us. You can find more information about Will and me at www.ccboard5.com.

Thank you

WDWS is reporting that the Champaign County Nursing Home has passed an Illinois Department of Public Health inspection, and is now able to remain open past mid-July.

It's a good thing, otherwise that three-year $540,000 consulting contract might look pretty silly.  Same with that $600,000 "loan" to the Nursing Home.

After a lengthy public comment session, testimony by the Champagn County Nursing Home Board of Directors, questions and comments from County Board members, a bi-partisan majority of the the board overwhelmingly voted to enter into a three year contract with Management Performance Associates to operate the Champaign County Nursing Home.

Later in the meeting, the board passed the $592,000 loan by voice vote, laying the groundwork for MPA to have a fair opportunity to make Champaign County Nursing Home viable again.

I apologize for the short post that lacks analysis of the speakers, questions, etc, but I have not been home all day and am ready for bed!

(also, internet access was not working at Brookens tonight. I plan on asking the proper folks to look into the problem)

WDWS is reporting that as of late last week, the CCNH still hadn't passed a state-mandated inspection and is still in danger of being shut down by the state on July 16.

Forgive me, but given the history of incompetence with this nursing home, I have little confidence that the County will be able to avoid a shutdown, so I must ask:

• How would a shutdown affect the $600,000 loan being discussed by the County Board tonight? 
• How would a shutdown affect the consulting contract with MPA?

It is no exageration to suggest that the votes tomorrow at the Champaign County Board meeting are among the most critical to ever face the Board.  The two issues are whether to extend a loan to the Nursing Home from the County's General Corp fund in the amount of $592,000 and whether to hire Management Performance Associates to manage the facility.  I've uploaded a copy of the last draft of the MPA contract which you can open below.  Not sure if other revisions are in the works.

The County is in an extremely bad situation.  The Nursing Home continues to put us in a bad fiscal situation.  The bed count has dropped and while some cost saving measures have been put in place, it still looks as if the facility will continue to bleed significant dollars without some action.

The Nursing Home board of Directors has been in existence for a mere six or seven weeks.  They've been handed a bad situation, dug in, and have recommended hiring MPA in a unanimous vote.  With more time, it would have been interesting to see what other options might present themselves, but time is a luxury that has been squandered by this Board. 

On the negative side with MPA is the lack of a guarantee that this will actually turn the situation around.  There is still a union contract to be negotiated, and MPA won't have the final say on that, the County Board will.  Does this contract really give MPA all the tools they need to turn the situation around.

On the positive side, MPA has done what appears to be a good job running a very similar Dekalb County facility.  They also run other county owned facilities.  The current web of government regulations suggests that some efficiencies can be gained by having experts handle some of those tasks.  It's no coincidence that so many nursing homes are owned by larger corporations, whose central offices can handle many of the things that seem to not be handled well in Champaign County. The other positive side is that whatever management problems exist at the current facility, I think MPA will deal with.  Doing a bad job for the County will never cost you your job if the County Board makes the decision.  But if its up to someone who's in private business, I believe that it will.

A lot of things could have happened in the last decade, and certainly the last couple years, to prevent this debacle.  Unfortunately, that's blood under the bridge.  Now there are two votes, two critical decisions for the County.  Neither one is easy and both have tremendous consequences for our community.

EDIT:  I should also point out that the Board will no doubt be discussing in closed session the status of our public health violations.  How this impacts the MPA discussion is interesting.  Purely conjecture here, but the hiring of MPA might be seen by Public Health as a good faith effort to address compliance issues.

Via today's N-G:

The county's nursing home is in even worse shape than it appears, a University of Illinois accountancy professor said.

Rachel Schwartz, who edits a scholarly journal on accounting practices, is serving as an unpaid consultant to the county board. She said Tuesday that data supplied to the county on Champaign County Nursing Home finances paints a rosier portrait than documents filed with the state.

The nursing home is asking for a $592,000 loan from the county at its Thursday meeting. Treasurer Dan Welch has said the county can't afford any more such loans.

Schwartz has looked through invoices – public documents – and found that the nursing home relies more on contract services for nursing and other therapies than budgets suggest. She said the facility uses a hybrid of accounting practices that reduces transparency.

From what Schwartz has seen, she said expenses are recorded as they are paid, while revenues are reported as the service is provided.

Speaking less technically, Schwartz said that financially, the nursing home "is dying."

Discuss.

The CCNH Advisory Board has approved a consulting contract with Management Performance Associates, sending it to the full County Board for approval this week.

The county nursing home's directors worked out their differences Monday to unanimously recommend a management contract for the facility.

Action on the $15,000-a-month contract would still have to be taken by the full Champaign County Board, which meets at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Brookens Center, 1776 E. Washington St., U.

Discuss.

Today's N-G has an excellent article on how Jon White might have been stopped earlier, and wasn't.  There's also a followup about what's happened since, and some related articles about mandatory reporting.

Jon White could have been stopped much earlier.

There were at least seven warning points at which a school employee in either Urbana or McLean County could have justified a call to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

No one did.

And so White – the man convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for acts involving 10 children – kept teaching.

Discuss.

From today's News-Gazette:

Czajkowski pondered a clause in the proposed contract that cited consultant availability as "deemed appropriate by consultants."

"I'm not sure what we're buying under this contract," he said. "What does the contract do to increase the census?"

Nursing home board member Mary Ellen O'Shaughnessey said the board needs to act immediately, but questioned whether Champaign is in the same position as DeKalb and Monroe counties.

"We're in a league of our own," she said, referring to a July 16 deadline by the state to correct problems in its inspections as well as $100,000 a month in losses.

O'Shaughnessey said the 27-member county board had made little progress in solving the nursing home's problems. She asked MPA president Mike Scavotto whether results would be faster under the consulting or the management contract.

"Management," Scavotto answered.

Discuss.

The Thursday, June 12 meeting of the Champaign County Nursing Home Board of Directors meeting location has been changed to the County Board Meeting Room at the Brookens Center. The meeting time remains at 7:30 a.m.

Originally the meeting was scheduled to take place in a classroom at the home. The anticipated crowd dictated the change in location.

This week, I have jury duty, though I did not actually end up sitting on a jury.  We ended up in the jury area, which was under construction but usable.  They didn't have a working video system, so they played the audio of Judge Ladd and the head of courthouse security talking.  It was explained to us that cellphones were banned because it was possible to record audio and video with them.  This bothered me for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, there are other devices that are also capable of doing these things which are allowed.  At a deeper level, this suggested that the court didn't expect that jurors would obey the rules unless they were actively enforced.  But it also seems like the system depends on an honor system to work properly.  Unless you have a sequestered jury, nobody is going to be making sure that the jurors aren't reading news stories about the trial, talking to others, etc.  So if jurors can't even be trusted not to do egregiously inappropriate stuff like taking photos in the courtroom, what about the other stuff?

Someone pointed out that it only took one idiot juror to cause an expensive mistrial, and the court might as well do whatever it can to prevent this.  I'd also heard that Champaign County didn't enforce jury summons, and wondered whether some of the rationale for this was to let potential problem jurors self-select themselves out of the pool.  If someone gets a summons saying that they're legally obligated to report for jury duty and ignores it, what are the odds that they'd comply with other rules about jury service?

Quite frankly, my blood is boiling right now. Here's the N-G story on the violations at the CCNH.

On a side note, for the life of me, I cannot understand how a new building can already have fire code violations.

Also, there is a Nursing Home Board of Directors meeting Monday, June 9 at 7:30 a.m. at the Nursing Home. Its time to start packing these meetings and demanding action, not just words.