‘We did our best’: DeKalb County nursing home’s operating board dissolved amid money problems

SYCAMORE – The operating board for the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center will be absorbed, one of several steps the county government looks to take to address budget constraints at the facility.

The DeKalb County Board also voted this week to begin soliciting an outside consultant to come in and assess financial realities at the center, which recently underwent a $13 million expansion but now faces dwindling resident numbers and cost increases, officials said.

On Wednesday, the DeKalb County Board voted, 23-0, to approve the ordinance, which will go into effect at the start of the new year. County Board member Kiara Jones was absent from the meeting.

County officials previously said the operating board was meant to exist on its own financially. However, because of the continued budget constraints from the nursing home, the County Board has had to approve $4.5 million in total financial aid to the facility so far, DeKalb County Administrator Brian Gregory had said.

DeKalb County Board Chairman John Frieders said Wednesday he wanted to acknowledge the volunteer work operating board members put in over the years.

“It’s the kind of job that doesn’t obviously get headlines in the paper, but it’s deeply appreciated, what’s been done over the years,” Frieders said. “It’s very much a thankless job.”

Frieders said the decision Wednesday was a difficult one.

“But sometimes, the circumstances demand those decisions,” Frieders said.

To address continued staff and financial issues, the County Board also voted unanimously to begin a search for brokerage and consulting services to evaluate the nursing home’s finances. Next steps could include the county government selling the nursing home to a private buyer, Gregory said previously.

Operating board member Ferald Bryan served on the board for five years, and said he’d been excited at the time because renovations were going well.

“Obviously, we could not have predicted the confluence of events that led us to where we are today,” Bryan said.

County Board member Bill Cummings said while he supports the operating board’s dissolution, he said he believes the board never received relevant and timely information about its financial predicament. He said financial statements the board received were always three months behind.

“I realized there were some issues that caused that, but I think that should have been remedied,” Cummings said. “I think, had the proper information been provided to the board, they would’ve been in a much better position to perhaps take actions as early as 2019.”

As other long-term care facilities in the country are facing similar resident-retention issues, the average daily census for the DeKalb County Nursing and Rehab Center went from 181 in 2018, to 168 in 2019, to 141 in 2020, to 117 this year. In order to break even, the nursing home census would have to be at about 175 people, according to county officials.

County documents state the nursing home raked in about $2.1 million less than expected in revenue during fiscal year 2019. In August 2020, the county sold $13 million in bonds for the nursing home’s expansion project to be paid from operating revenues over the next three decades.

The expansion included additional rooms, an activity center, an upgraded fire alarm system, a nursing call system, a larger chiller and a new boiler system. A 15,400-square-foot transitional care unit added 18 rooms to the 83,000-square-foot facility.

The nursing home then collected $2.8 million less than expected in revenues during fiscal year 2020, according to county documents. The county treasurer’s office began to note cash flow issues with the nursing home fund in March 2021, which resulted in the county board approving a $2 million loan for cash flow purposes.

By Sept. 1, the loan proceeds were exhausted, the documents state.

The operating board’s meeting scheduled for Dec. 9 will be its final one before being absorbed by the end of the month.

Bryan said there were certain things contributing to the Wednesday vote that were out of the operating board’s control. He said he wanted to stress that a lot of people depend on the nursing home and urged the public to not consider the sale of the nursing home as inevitable.

“We’ve done our best to help you and I wish you well in taking care of that home for the next few years,” Bryan told the County Board. “I would simply ask if you respect the fact that we did our best to try to be good stewards of the home, and I hope you will do the same.”