After a crucial vote, it turns out Lincoln County will not have a referendum on the ballot this November to support its county-owned nursing home.
Now instead, they’re back to looking for a new buyer.
Pine Crest Nursing Home has been a part of the community in Merrill for decades, but for the past three years, the county has been reconsidering its future.
County leaders say they can’t afford to keep operating and maintaining it.
There was a buyer on the table, but that fell through after supervisor Donald Dunphy sued the county, arguing that they weren’t following best practices for high-value property sales.
Then the county was considering a referendum for the ballot this November that would raise taxes to support the nursing home.
Last week, at a county committee meeting, supervisor Greg Hartwig proposed a referendum to raise the tax levy by almost four-million each year for five years to fund Pine Crest Nursing Home.
The resolution failed with a vote of 10 against it and 9 in favor.
While the vote wasn’t challenged, it actually went against parliamentary procedure.
Lincoln County Chair Jesse Boyd said he was under the impression the majority of individuals present could decide the resolution, but technically, all members of the committee should have been present.
“I wanted to be forefront and honest and transparent that my understanding of Robert's Rules of Order was wrong, but nobody challenged my ruling. So the motion did not carry” explained Boyd.
If the full county board wants to start trying to find another buyer, then Boyd says that’s what his committee will do.
Eileen Guthrie is with the grassroots organizing group People for Pine Crest, advocating for the nursing home to remain public. She says the actual costs of fixing and operating the nursing home may be less than what was discussed.
“If we could put a better grip on what those costs are and the priority of them, a number could be developed and a referendum that is a common compromise between Pine Crest and the county's concerns and needs. It's wishful thinking, but I think that that's where a referendum needs to be,” she said.
“Why would a private industry buy a, by county terms, a ‘failing company or a facility’, you know. Is the answer maybe it's not failing as much as they say it is? That's a harsh way to put it, but I don't know how else to put it,” said Guthrie.
Boyd says the county has done their due diligence, considering many different solutions, and that at the end of the day, the government is never good at running businesses that compete with private industry.
He says that the county hasn’t been efficiently running the nursing home.
He thinks private industry could produce a profit more effectively.
“I work in private industry, and I can tell you, government contracts seem to go a lot higher than private contracts. You could have the same work being done in the private industry versus a government industry, and the government prices are so much higher,” said Boyd.
Boyd says if Pine Crest loses one more nurse, they’ll have to reduce their patient population from 80 folks down to 74.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
