Nov 28, 2016 5 min read

After years of bleeding red ink, the Washington County commissioners have raised the possibility of selling the health center in Arden.

The county’s contract with the Service Employees International Union expires Dec. 31, and Commission Chairman Larry Maggi said of the potential sale of the nursing home, “That is on the table.”

”We’ve lost over $9 million in the past four years,” Maggi said. “Next year, it could be more, over $3 million. That’s almost 3 mills of taxes every year.”

Maggi claimed federal and state government are pushing the counties out of direct ownership of nursing homes by reducing formulas for payment.

”The length of stay has been reduced significantly,” he continued.

In May, Timothy Kimmel, Washington County director of human services and health center administrator, pegged the cost per patient day at $296.54. Reimbursement per patient day ranged from $224.37, the Medical Assistance rate, to an average Medicare rate of $485.

The county signed a $30,000 contract that month with the consulting and accounting firm Arnett Carbis Toothman of New Castle, Lawrence County, which responded to the county’s request for help in the minimizing costs and maximizing reimbursement for services.

Washington, Maggi said, is one of 16 Pennsylvania counties that own at least one nursing home. Neighboring Allegheny County has three.

The county hasn’t called a real estate agent, hung out a “for sale” sign or formally agreed to solicit bids from a private owner, but Maggi said, “That’s all being explored.”

Nor is it looking to sell the hilltop campus as an apartment complex, for example.

”If we market it, it’s going to remain a health center. There will still be jobs there; it will just be run by a different owner,” said the commissioner, who expects the patients to remain there.

”It’s something that we’re not happy to even be talking about,” he continued. “It’s a different situation.”

In 2015, the county subsidized the health center $3.2 million; in 2014, $1.3 million; in 2013, $2.1 million; and in 2012, $2.6 million.

”We’ve lost over $9 million in the past four years,” Maggi said. “Next year, it could be more, over $3 million next year. That’s almost 3 mills of taxes every year.”

The board of commissioners, including current commissioners Maggi and Diana Irey Vaughan, last raised property taxes throughout the county in 2010, but Maggi said income from natural gas and oil wells on or beneath county land, rather than taxpayer dollars, have footed the bill for the health center subsidies.

The number of patients at the 288-bed health center has been averaging 255 over the past year, Maggi said.

”I know what the financial picture of the facility looks like, so I’m not surprised the commissioners are soliciting bids to sell the facility,” health center Administrator Kimmel said Monday.

Personnel is the highest cost of running the health center.

Kimmel, who is both the county’s director of human services and who, since 2012 has been wearing a second hat as health center administrator after receiving certification, earns $109,737 annually. The position of assistant administrator has not been filled since his assistant became director of nursing this year.

According to the Washington County salary schedule, a health center nurse’s aide hired at the beginning of this year had a salary of approximately $33,900, while a food service worker in the dietary department hired a year ago makes about $33,600.

”I don’t know what the private nursing homes pay,” Kimmel said. “We don’t do too bad as far as retaining employees.”

There were 319 workers at the health center as of Nov. 16.

Toni Vallone, business agent for Service Employees International Union Local, did not immediately return a call for comment Monday afternoon.

The health center at 36 Old Hickory Ridge Road, Chartiers Township, across from the county fairgrounds, was constructed in 1977 to replace separate Victorian-style structures, both in Arden. The county homes for aged men and aged women were later razed.

An Alzheimer’s wing was added to the health center in 2000, and in 2011, the county held an open house for the $1.2 million J. Barry Stout Rehabilitation Center, named for the former state senator who secured a grant of state taxpayers’ money to expand the department. Stout died earlier this month.

The county has been in the business of providing care for the indigent for a long time. Pre-dating the two county homes was an institution literally known as “the poorhouse,” which was also in Arden, going back to 1830.