With over $39.3 million sitting in the bank at the end of November, the folks who run McHenry County’s nursing home, called Valley Hi, are looking for ways to spent the money.
Here is a part of the minutes from December 10th’s Operating Board meeting:
Market Demand Anaysis Discussion
Mr. [Peter] Austin lead a discussion about creating an RFP for a market demand analysis including a community gap analysis.
The purpose f the review would be to determine what, if any, services were lacking in McHenry County and what if any, program changes could be made at Valley Hi to expand health care options to fill the gaps or provide different services.
It was noted that Valley Hi was not looking to compete with the private industry and Mr. Austin indicated that the review would consider public / private partnerships as potential options rather than simply adding to the size of the County staff.
After discussion among the Board Chairman [Peter] Michling stated that he felt the time was right for a study and indicated that he thought development of an RFP should be initiated. It was determined that the bid specs would be developed and shared with the Board at their meeting in January for their thoughts
Have not the slightest hint that’s the case here, but sometimes consultants are hired to come to a predetermined conclusion.
If all they want to do is be helpful folks, there are a lot of steps that can be taken before spending taxpayer money on a consultant.
Have an open house.
Have a roadshow, let the newspapers and libraries and villages know about the roadshow so you don’t have to spend a dime advertising, and listen to the community.
Have a suggestion box in the lobby.
Ask the caregivers in the facility for their ideas.
Do some legwork yourselves Valley Hi.
Then if you need a consultant for something, hire them.
The County has a page for Valley Hi, but no link to the Valley Hi website on that page.
http://www.co.mchenry.il.us/county-government/building-info-directions/valley-hi-nursing-home
http://www.valleyhiil.com
And vice versa, no link form the Valley Hi website, to the county website.
There’s no link to the Operating Board or any board minutes on the Valley Hi, where are the board calendar, agendas, and minutes?
There’s no indication on the Valley Hi website that it’s a unit of McHenry County government.
If you have excess cash, rebate it to the taxpayers.
Instead of finding ways to spend it by expanding your scope of services.
Is Peter Austin the current County Chairman?
How about we give the money back to the taxpayers instead of looking for ways to waste it?
Austin is the County Administrator.
Before the Valley Hi board starts spending on new ventures, they should make a few improvements at the facility.
My wife is a patient in the Short Term Rehab program. She has been there a couple of months and I have spent many hours there during that time. I have noticed a couple of things that could use some help.
The Nursing station has a bell that rings (and keeps ringing loudly) when a patient pushes their call button.
The bell at Valley Hi rings rapidly and loudly for long periods of time.
Often when my wife pushes the button for help with the bathroom, waits of 15-20 minutes are not unusual.
Then when she is done and pushes the call button again, often there are long waits.
The health aids that do most of the grunt work seem to be working quite hard.
Most of the time they are with a patient or running down the hallway to a patient.
I think that a few more people are necessary in this area to reduce the waiting time.
Often when standing in the long hallways you can see several call lights are on for rooms.
The second area I noticed is the mostly manual patient record and medication system.
It has been a while since I have been in a doctor’s office or hospital where the records are paper and mostly manual.
I often see the nurses spending hours at the desk filling out paper records for each patient.
The medication system also seems to be a paper driven systems.
Most health care facilities us automated dispensing systems with scanning equipment to make sure the right medications get the right patient.
The board should look into an updated system to do this. Medication errors are the leading cause of patient injury and death.
When you do the review you might want to look into the admin area also.
When we checked in initially I had to spend over an hour going through a paper work cyclone of things to sign and acknowledge.
Clearly it is impossible for anyone to understand the inch thick stack of mostly legal papers I came away with.
What I found most disconcerting was I had to sign a contract form for a one year period even though my wife would not be for anywhere near that long.
The Admission person told me that the short term rehab program had been added a year or two back but the board had not got around to creating a new document to cover this program.
She said I had to sign the contract even though it was incorrect in order to get my wife into rehab. Certainly the board needs to review this stupidity.
I am sure they would hire a lawyer to create the right document in a few months and then vote to accept it.
This item alone makes me wonder if the management should receive a very close review.
Public -private partnerships in this county seem to mean that the public pays the bills, and the private makes the profit.
In a county with property tax rates exceeding 4% in some areas, and rising on a steep trajectory, how can the County Administrator justify inflicting still higher tax burdens on citizens?
Our county property tax rate (national average is 1.4% of home value, mine is 4% of home value,
what’s yours?)cannot be disregarded as a major factor deterring local contributory development.
Questions I have as a new board member about Valley High.
I have always been taught the number 1 rule in business is to sell high and buy low.
Now I realize we are in government and not business but maybe since we have the most expensive tax burden in the state we should be looking at ways to mitigate our liability.
How long have we had this partnership arrangement?
I understand that it has been for over a hundred years.
Since it has been that long since the taxpayers have sounded off maybe it is time to ask them again?
We need to find out what taxpayers think about subsidizing a private industry business with their money.
What is Valley High worth as a commodity to the private sector?
If we sold Valley High couldn’t we then return the proceeds back to taxpayers by paying down the existing debt?
Your thoughts and constructive criticisms would be appreciated.
I doubt if you look at the current Census of Valley Hi that what you see would support the statement that they do no compete with private business.
Just try to get a low income bed for a senior in the is community.
My guess is that is why they are making money.
It appears they are positioning the home for sale.
Ted:
It sounds like what you are really saying, it may be time to consider selling Valley Hi to the private sector where healthy competition reigns requiring greater efficiency, professional service and management or face extinction.
On top of that, taxpayers benefit by turning this tax burden into a source of tax revenue.
39 Million Dollars of taxpayer funds sitting in a liquid account earning little or no interest, c’mon follow the money, there is more here than simple oversight.
This is truly an abuse of the taxpayer!
Think of this grotesque stash of taxpayer cash the next time your neighbor’s house is involuntarily sold for nonpayment of taxes.
Valley Hi is currently just a county-run enterprise.
There is no comparable private business that takes care of the number of medicaid patients that Valley Hi does.
They (private businesses) are not out there looking for that segment of the eldercare business.
It is in the black because of its bed mix that also includes some medicare and private pay beds and because of its now good management.
And in today’s economy, whatever any government would engage in is considering the option (note the word option) of a public-private partnership.
Why not wait and see what the specifications for the RFP are before criticizing what the Board is doing??
It was a referendum approximately 10 years ago (?) by which the taxpayers of McHenry County voted for the building of the present Valley Hi.
Most McHenry citizens I’ve spoken to are shocked to learn that Valley Hi does not have the legal right to grant priority admission to someone from McHenry County (who has been living here and paying taxes to Valley Hi all these years).
There is no ‘waiting list’ for local people, admissions must be granted to anyone from anywhere, because Valley Hi accepts Medicare and Medicaid.
My belief it that the Board has a duty to educate McHenry County citizens to this fact before broaching any discussions of expansion, or committing funds into new ventures not described in the strict wording of the Valley Hi referendum passed during those halcyon economic times many years ago.
Now there has built up an excess $30-$40 million in Valley Hi surplus fund, earning about zero interest, and yet $4.5 has been levied to taxpayers this year in order to add to that surplus.
I was informed that the Board must keep levying high tax amounts for money they do not need, because if they lower the tax levy to say, $1, they are restricted by PTELL thereafter to only be allowed to raise that levy $.05 annually .
So, if they ever needed the money they would not have a legal mechanism to get it…OTHER THAN A REFERENDUM.
The scare tactic is being used that grandmother will get thrown onto the street.
Not mentioned: only if they run through their $35 million dollar surplus, AND are unable to get taxpayers to pass a referendum stating they are willing to pay to NOT have grandmother thrown out on the street.
Also not mentioned: no guarantee that grandmother will get a bed in this County home when she needs it: she may never get off the street into the door.
Could a fund be set up with some of the surplus funding to pay premiums for Medicaid placement for needy McHenry County residents?
Then it would make sense to sell Valley Hi.
That combination would be more beneficial than status quo to both taxpayers and future local residents of extended care.
Thank you Susan for your views
Susan you have good ideas