As consultant steps in, DeKalb County officials say sale of ailing county nursing home isn’t imminent

SYCAMORE – The DeKalb County Board was recently presented with several options to address the county nursing home’s financial woes, while officials said they wanted to reassure the public it’s not the government’s intent to close the center.

DeKalb County Administrator Brian Gregory said while some revenue came into the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in January, persistent budgetary shortfalls means the government will soon have to step in to offer additional financial aid.

“As we look out ahead to next week with the claims going out and payroll obligations and also some [legal settlement] obligations, ... we’re looking at about another $1 million next week that will need to be infused in order to meet payroll and vendor obligations,” Gregory said.

County officials previously said the nursing and rehab center 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 $6.4 million in total financial aid to the facility so far, Gregory said.

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.

Gregory said the nursing home was at 119 occupants at the end of 2021. However, county nursing home officials confirmed there were 128 residents as of Monday, Feb. 7.

“But again, there’s a pretty big gap between 175 and 128,” Gregory said. “Really, we’ve been teetering at around 120, 125 since about a year ago, when we first discovered this issue.”

The DeKalb County Board earlier this month approved a $10,000 contract for a consultant to help the county decide whether to sell the county nursing home. The contract for consulting and brokerage services went to Marcus and Millichap, which has offices in Chicago and Oak Brook Terrace.

During the Wednesday meeting, consultant representatives told county board members they had a few options for the nursing home. One is to sell the facility to a private buyer. Another could involve a limited asset sale, or sale of property, plant and equipment.

“If it were a sale, for instance, the occupancy is not necessarily an issue,” Ray Giannini, senior managing director for consulting firm Marcus and Millichap, said. “Because at 128 residents, it’s still a large group of folks and a buyer would come in and impose their own kind of expense structure, to a certain extent.”

Giannini said he doesn’t foresee a difference in cost to the nursing home resident if the facility was sold to private ownership.

“Unless someone came in and raised the private rate, I suppose,” Giannini said. “Although, there’s a lot of competition.”

Other options could include the county continuing to own the nursing home property but leasing the nursing home to a private tenant. The county could also hire a management agency to run the facility. However, those options present their own liability issues for patients and staff, Giannini said.

Giannini said another part of the issue is the nursing home’s reliance on temporary hired help.

“Which, again, is like paying double time for regular time,” Giannini said.

Giannini said a lot of families are now resorting to in-home care options for elderly folks and that has been affecting facility censes across the country.

“The point is, to get to 175, 180, I think those days are gone,” Giannini said.

The county board previously absorbed the operating board for the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center in December. The action was meant to be one of several steps the county government is looking to take to address budget constraints at the facility.

The center in recent years underwent a $13 million expansion but now faces dwindling resident numbers and cost increases, officials have said.

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.

Dawn Lawton, dietary director for the center, said she wanted to make it clear to the public that, while selling the nursing home is an option for the county board, that doesn’t mean the board is actively trying to sell right now.

“We failed the nursing home for three to four years because we weren’t looking at the numbers and paying attention to what was going on in the nursing home,” Lawton said.

Lawton said the nursing home has gone through five administrators since 2015.

“It’s been a county home that whole time,” Lawton said. “So why hasn’t anyone on the county board questioned why MPA went through five administrators in that time? Why didn’t we ask about where the numbers were? [...] Residents need to know.”

Gregory said he understands the concept of a sale could be scary and that residents or their loved ones living in the home may wonder if they would need to find someplace else to go. He said the facility’s goal remains to provide the best care to its residents.

“We’re evaluating all the different options,” Gregory said. “But [we want to] reassure everyone, reassure our community, that our goal is to see a functioning high-quality nursing home, whether it’s county owned or owned by someone else.”