County Board

The New-Gazette headline asks, "Does Urbana Courthouse plaza need giant Lincoln head?"

Twenty-one feet tall, it would resemble one of the mysterious Easter Island sculptures, only with a stovepipe hat. Rubbing his nose might be a stretch.

Langenheim notes that of all the artists who have passed through Champaign-Urbana or the University of Illinois, only Gallo and Lorado Taft have international reputations.

He acknowledges that when he shows a picture that Gallo has Photoshopped from a Lincoln head he donated to Urbana High School, the usual reaction is shock.

"Every county courthouse in Illinois has a statue in the stylized Lincoln cliche style," Langenheim said. "This would not be one of those. It would attract some pretty strong feelings."

My answer is:  only if it can be paid for via private donations.  There no discussion in the article of how such a sculpture would be funded.

The Policy Committee tonight after long debate tabled the motion to put a property tax hike for the nursing home on the November ballot, effectively killing it.

The County Board Policy Committee passed the County Schools Sales Tax Referendum on to the full County Board tonight.  The resolution passed with the full one cent. It is to place the question on the November ballot.

Here is the report presented tonight at the committee meeting of the school districts based in Champaign County and how much they have proposed in property tax relief.

Here is a chart of the rates for bonds for the various school districts for this year's tax bills. These numbers can vary dramatically from one year to the next.

I'm not fully aware of the law.  I'm guessing that the districts which are only partly in Champaign County will probably get revenue from this as well. 

WDWS is reporting that Democratic County Board member Carrie Melin (District 7) is resigning to take a teaching position in Wisconsin.  Melin defeated Mark Randall by 46 votes in 2006, and was not on the ballot for this November's election. 

I think that her appointed replacement will not be on the ballot until 2010, but I'm not sure.

Interesting article in yesterday's News-Gazette:

For months, Champaign County Board members have mentioned asking voters to increase their taxes through a November referendum as a possible fix to nursing home expenses weighing on its budget.

With the recent creation of an advisory board and the subsequent hiring of a St. Louis consulting firm, the talk has died down as a deadline for putting the measure on the ballot nears.

I still think they'll put it on the ballot:

Other quotes:

Betz expressed doubt that the home could generate enough funds not only to sustain itself but also to come up with millions to pay back the county general corporate fund.

"The management contract has no possibility of solving the outstanding loans issue and we should not kid ourselves into thinking that it does," he said.

Ugh.

And:

Urbana Democrat Ralph Langenheim, one of the strongest supporters of a tax increase, put the home's problems in a nationwide political context.

"The blunt truth is: Every Republican national administration since Reagan has mounted repeated efforts to repeal the reforms and programs enacted by Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson," he said. "These efforts have reduced Medicaid reimbursement to the home below cost; they have also reduced support for Medicare. This is the principal cause of our nursing home's gigantic deficit."

Of course! Those damn Republicans are the reason that CCNH is lost $1.5 million this year.  None of those Democrats at the state level, and certainly none at the County level, have absolutely anything to do with it.

One more:

Mahomet Republican John Jay said he supports the nursing home but not a tax increase.

"I do not believe a tax increase will solve the nursing home problems. It would only postpone the problems. We must remember the nursing home already receives an $800,000-per-year subsidy. We need to give the new nursing home board a chance to fix the problems. Just throwing money at it will not fix the problems," he said.

I hope, for the amount of money that we're spending on a County Nursing Home, that patients are being cared for who cannot receive care elsewhere.

The hits just keep on coming:

Rachel Schwartz, who has offered her services to the county unpaid, told the Champaign County Board that there are discrepancies. For example, the home reported spending $342,875 for contract rehabilitation services in fiscal 2007 on its unaudited expense report, but gave the state a $567,495 figure for the same expense.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Today's News-Gazette:

Nursing home Administrator Andrew Buffenbarger was directed to improve the home's financial picture by $300,000 by the August full county board meeting, through a combination of cuts and revenue increases.

He was also directed to consult with Washington University Professor Rachel Schwartz, who had examined the nursing home's public records and offered her services to the county for free.

The $592,000 loan was approved by a voice vote at Thursday night's committee meeting. Two Republican board members, Brad Jones of Champaign, the vice chair of the committee, and Chris Doenitz of Mahomet asked that their "no" votes be recorded.

The original plan was to lend the facility $460,000, but committee members decided to transfer a greater sum to avoid having to do the same thing in just a few months.

Even majority Democrats showed signs of bucking future loans to the nursing home.

"I have no confidence in the nursing home finances anymore," said Champaign Democrat Michael Richards. "I will not vote for this tonight unless we do something about the nursing home."

Discuss.

This just keeps getting worse:

McGinty said this week he believes the loan will pass through the committee to seek full county board support June 29.

But it won't be a lovefest for nursing home Administrator Andrew Buffenbarger.

"I've asked Andrew for a realistic assessment of what $460,000 buys us in terms of time. I have a feeling it's not going to last too long," McGinty said.

...

Jones said he and probably one other committee member, Republican Chris Doenitz, could vote against the loan.

"I will not support another transfer," Jones said. "We do not have the money."

He said a report from Champaign County Treasurer Dan Welch convinced him the county no longer has enough money to lend such sums to the nursing home.

"I have not seen enough changes over there. We need to work together with the unions to make changes. We need a solution to contract nurses," Jones said.

Do we even know if the State is going to allow the Nursing Home to remain open past July 16?  Has the CCNH addressed the requirements of the Illinois Department of Public Health?

I've obtained this memo sent to Champaign County Board members outlining the announced plans of each of the County's school districts if the proposed one percent sales tax increase for education facilities passes in November.

There's no real new information in this, but it is a very useful summary of plans.  You can read the whole thing yourself, but you'll note that every district which has existing debt is currently promising to use sales tax revenue to abate or eliminate that debt (and reduce property taxes as a consequence), although the amounts vary.

Key information to remember (taken from the memo):

Each of the Boards of Education of the 14 school districts in Champaign County has passed a resolution requesting that the Champaign County Board put the question of imposing a 1% sales tax for school facility purposes for submission to the voters of Champaign County at the November 4, 2008, election. If this resolution passes and the County Board implements the full 1% sales tax, the revenue can be used for the following purposes:

• Pay for projects as you go
• Leverage revenue for current needs (use revenue to pay for bonds)
• Retire existing debt issued for capital purposes (abate taxes)
• Any combination of the above

Discuss.

This may be old news, but I didn't see either a post or a NG story on it:  the Illinois Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in the petition challenge court case involving Democratic County Board member Brendan McGinty, which means that he will remain on the ballot for November's election.

UPDATE:  I missed it - the NG story is here.  Sorry!

Someone pointed this out in today's Open Thread, and while I haven't quite gotten my blogging groove back, I had to post it:

Some people showing up for jury duty at the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana this morning were sent home, not because there were no trials for them to hear but because construction had displaced them.

"We've got no place to put these jurors," an irritated Presiding Judge Tom Difanis said this morning. "What am I going to do with them? Have them stand in the construction area?"

Tuckpointing on the old courthouse began last week in advance of the renovation of the courthouse bell tower. The work means that the jury assembly room, on the first floor of the old courthouse at the west end of the courthouse complex, will be out of commission for several months.

"They (county administrators) had their timetable, and we just merely suggested that they make a place for us to put our jurors and they haven't," Difanis said this morning. "I've been with Champaign County going on 36 years. It really doesn't surprise me we're this inept."

Emphasis added.

The Gazette article