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Today's Poll: Would you pay higher taxes to keep the Nursing Home county-owned?

By Howard B. Owens
John Stone

No...
Actually, please make that "Hell no..."
They are already getting too much money, at all levels of government administration, and the nursing-home is no exception. It's an issue of poor administrative choices over the years.
Now they need to do what we do every day, and figure out how the heck they are going to live within their means. If it's a civil-service operation, I could personally cut their budget by 30% in a year, AND increase the quality of care to those who this facility serves. (The ones who really matter there.) The employees, at all levels, would have to make some adjustments as well, but everyone would still have their job.
Choose... Keep the home, or demand that nothing change, and all be out of a job in a few years...
(I don't hold a lot of hope for the employees to see reason, but maybe they'll surprise me!)

Apr 2, 2014, 8:51am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

After trimming $870K in expenses, I suppose they could just stop feeding patients. Medication? Who needs it. Cut that, too. Heat in winter, AC in summer? Wasted money. Just cut it off.

Apr 2, 2014, 9:38am Permalink
bud prevost

Since this is government run, my guess it is fraught with inefficiencies, waste, and questionable accounting practices. Add to it the bloated, greedy insurance companies that are party to decisions for patient care, and you have one hot mess.
Just like other areas of government, if we could control costs, and better monitor what we spend, the home could break even. I'm curious what the ratio of actual caregivers is to administrative personnel. Perhaps less pencil pushing civil servants is part of the solution. We can't shut the door on the most unfortunate. Our county has a long history of providing for the less fortunate, but throwing more money at the problem is not the solution. Transparency, accountability and compassion is what I'm asking for.

Apr 2, 2014, 10:24am Permalink
Bea McManis

of course we can, Bud. As it was plainly stated the last go around, "why should I cover the cost of Grannie being waited on hand and foot". These people are old and infirmed because they want to be, it isn't the responsibility of tax payers who reap no benefit from the home to pay for it. NOTE THE SARCASISM DRIPPING!

Apr 2, 2014, 10:58am Permalink
Tim Miller

John - I'm extremely interested in those plans to cut 30% of the costs. Could you please elaborate (details)?

My first response to a claim like that is usually "shenanigans!", but that would be unfair without seeing the details. Even if only half or a third are feasible, those ideas would lead to 10-15% cost savings!

Apr 2, 2014, 11:21am Permalink
Jeff Allen

For what it's worth, Cattaraugus County Nursing Home contracted a comprehensive study 2 years ago while considering it's future. The study is 150 pgs long but pages 19-22 focus on statewide trends and specifically mention Genesee County. Granted the study is 2 years old and precedes full implementation of the ACA, but the two nursing homes in Cattaraugus County (Machias and Olean) are examples of public homes grinding out modest success in a crumbling market.

http://www.cgr.org/reports/12_R-1674_FutureOptionsCattaraugusNursingHom…

Apr 2, 2014, 12:25pm Permalink
Mark Potwora

Don't all government agencies lose money...The social welfare dept .in genesee county loses money every year ..More then the county nursing home..Where is the out rage to trim back that dept..We get taxed way more to support that then we do the nursing home...We give 2 million to GCC no out rage there..

Apr 2, 2014, 12:50pm Permalink
Rex Lampke

While our country spends 51,000,000,000 on the "War on Drugs" to put about 60,0000 in prison for marijuana, at a cost of 21,000 per person. Such a waste of money that could easily go to help these seniors that deserve to be treated at least as good as prisoners with there free medical, education, a/c, even cable TV and the internet we need to stop the madness and reform our drug laws and stop telling everyone how to live.

Apr 2, 2014, 5:19pm Permalink
Dave Olsen

3 things to add: (my 3 cents so to speak)

1. the blame for this lies squarely upon the County Legislature. This problem has been going on and getting worse for years, all they have ever done is apply band-aids, kick the can down the street and pat each other on the back. I know some of them are new this year, but until we see some action taken, which we have not; they fit into the category of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" That song by the way, "Won't Get Fooled Again" was released 45 years ago, and we are still getting fooled. Wake up Genesee County.

2. Having got all that off my chest, could we heed the words of President JFK?
"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." If you have an idea that may help, send it to your legislator. If it won't help, so what at least you are offering, if it helps, great. If they ignore it, see #1 above.

3. Rex Lampke is totally correct.

Apr 2, 2014, 9:48pm Permalink
John Woodworth JR

That will never happen Rex. Criminals have more rights than the people they killed, hurt or violated.

The victims of these prisoner do not get treated better. Heck our homeless in this country do not even treated better than the criminals or illegal immigrants in this country. Criminals do not just get, free cable, free internet, free gym and if our idiot Governor Cuomo gets his way a free College education.They also get three (03) hots (aka meals) and a cot (aka a bed). We are dead set on improving illegal immigrants' and other criminals' life but, look over our own American Citizen families who struggle on a single income and can't afford college for their children let alone guarantee three square meals a day. While food, fuel, energy and taxes rise; taxpayers pay more and more to the point they can't afford the things they need.

Heck, I say that we send all our prisoners to a deserted island and give them how to do books, tents, seeds and hand tools and let them live like they want on the island. Let them grow their food and make their shelters. They do not need TV, video games or movies. Get rid of those three evil influences and maybe just maybe they would understand what it means to be a contributing member of society.

Apr 2, 2014, 9:52pm Permalink
Lorna Klotzbach

Take a trip to the other nursing home in Batavia and you will see, smell and hear why we should have a Genesee County Nursing Home!
A society is judged by how it takes care of its weakest members.
I hear people say about the County Home, "I have no complaints about how mom/dad is being cared for...." I can not say that about the nursing home in which I just visited my family member. I am horrified by my visit.
By all means, eliminate fraud and waste. But just like public schools are not factories, nursing homes are not optional for-profit luxuries! They are necessities.
Demand that Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and State Senator Ranzenhoffer and Representative Hawley get the federal and state governments to make the payments they owe to Genesee County for the nursing home so that it can be solvent.
Demand that reimbursements from private and public insurances be reasonable enough to cover good care such as is provided by the county home.
Reward this governmental agency for cutting costs while still providing humane, high-quality care to our weakest, and still-precious community members.

Apr 2, 2014, 9:54pm Permalink
Dave Olsen

Not every private care operation is bad, in fact in PA it has been shown that in many cases serious deficiencies actually declined after the sale or privatization of a county home. It depends, logically on who you sell it to and what types of oversights are put in place. I think ours needs to be privatized, in order to bring enough efficiency to lower the cost of running it. We also have the moral obligation to ensure that if we have to have taxes, (we don't, but that's another discussion) tax money is being spent wisely and prudently. The research into the firms contracted with and the oversights need to carefully and painstakingly done. Creativity, objectiveness, and common sense are needed.

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/ci_23523867/franklin-county-prepares…

Apr 2, 2014, 10:47pm Permalink
John Stone

Simple start comes with a cancellation of any civil-service contracts. All employees take whichever option they prefer: 1- find another employer, or 2- Accept the pay-cut, and having "benefits" altered to reflect that which is offered to the average private employee in the same position.
Who were the unionized fools a few years back who refused to make the concessions? Hostess, I think... And because they didn't want a slight reduction in their pay and benefits, they ALL found themselves standing in the unemployment line...
Give 'em the same option here... Yeah... It's harsh. However, the reality is that what is coming soon is going to be a LOT harsher. The entirety of a union worker's annual salary is between 25% and 45% of his(her) actual cost of employment. Private ones "net" is between 65% and 80% of their actual cost of employment.
Unless you aren't grounded in actual, factual reality, you will be able to look back and see when it went wrong: The moment that public employees were allowed to unionize, the death-knell started. Then the requirement for all government-funded projects to be completed by union shops, established this delayed euthanasia of (whichever governmental institution you care to insert here...)
Any ideas how much "extra" taxes were collected and spent in order to re-inflate their pension accounts? I'm still waiting for some benevolent group to offset the huge hits that MY pension accounts took... Not holding my breath, because I'd die waiting.
So, now I will sit back and watch those who are terrified regarding the soon-to-be-ended(whether they like it or not) gravy-train, flame me about how "unfair" my reform plan is.
Grow up, and assess your actual value to your employer... If you are part of a union, you really should be ashamed of it... There has been no need for unions in civil service since at least the 1970's.
I offer kudos to all of the administrators at UMMC who have wisely kept the hospital from becoming a union-shop. What kind of idiot would want to restructure the finances there in a manner that would not alter patient-care in the positive, all while increasing the cost three-fold? Oh yeah... any given bureaucrat looking to get votes by "helping" the "workers".
If you cannot see the truth in this, there is no hope for you or your nation...

Apr 3, 2014, 9:56am Permalink
Tim Miller

So it is all the unions' faults that this nursing home 's budget is in the red?

Take a look at the brouhaha in Wisconsin a few years back. The prevalent screech from Walker and his cronies was that public unions cost way too much, and that they were breaking the state's budget. Hardly so - public employees in WI were paid *less* than their private counterparts. This includes the value of their benefits.
http://www.epi.org/publication/wisconsin_publicsector_workers_are_under…

...and before you start arguing about supposed "job security" of public sector jobs, consider that private employment is now at an all-time high (still lower than needed when population growth is taken into consideration), but public employment is down (I believe) 600,000 from its high. I am not making any statement about the value of the lost jobs - just that there are 600,000 public employees who will laugh at the idea of "job security"...
http://www.epi.org/publication/public-sector-job-losses-unprecedented-d…

I am still very interested in a detailed plan to cut the home's expenses by 30%. If cancelling the union contracts is part of the deal, please include facts and figures to show the amount of money saved.

Apr 3, 2014, 10:55am Permalink
Mark Potwora

The people that work at the county nursing home are county employee's no different than those who work at the social welfare dept,public works dept ,sheriff's dept,the county airport,the jail, and Gsell and all his management personal.All these departments lose money every year..Why isn't the county legislature looking for cuts and savings in any of those departments to help off set the costs of the nursing home....To me the nursing home serves more and helps more then anything the county airport does .......

Apr 3, 2014, 11:37am Permalink

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