The Lincoln County Board of Supervisor voted to sell Pine Crest Nursing home this week.
This is the second time the board has agreed to sell after the first deal fell through.
The resolution comes more than three years after the county started debating the future of the county-run nursing home in Merrill.
Lincoln County is expected to close on its $9.5 million sale of Pine Crest on August 1st.
It’s being sold to the Ensign Group which owns or operates hundreds of other nursing homes and rehab centers across the country- including one in Wausau.
Supervisor Greg Hartwig told people at Tuesday’s County Board meeting that he was impressed by the company when he toured the facility in Wausau.
“I know not everybody's happy about it. I understand that all of us, most of us, have people in Pine Crest, and I understand that, but I I'm comfortable with Ensign, that they'll be here and they're going to serve the community properly,” said Hartwig.
The Lincoln County has said Pine Crest has been running for years under substantial deficits and could no longer afford to run it.
A couple people spoke in favor of selling it during public comment.
“If we wait too long and the facility deteriorates further, you're not going to have anybody who's going to want to buy it,” said Jeff Benedict.
There were far more people who spoke during public comment that supported keeping Pine Crest county-owned, fearing that care would decline under a for-profit owner.
Pine Crest is one of 36-county owned nursing homes in Wisconsin.
A WPR/Wisconsin Watch analysis of U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data shows they tend to be better staffed, have higher quality of care than for-profits and nonprofits.
It was one of the main points of people, like Dora Gorski, who asked Supervisors to vote no on the resolution to sell.
“The number one motive is going to be making a profit, and the people who are there are secondary,” said Gorski. “Maybe we can continue to have a nursing home. But will it be a five star nursing home that we can be proud of, that we have built, that we have pushed trust in for years and years?”
Others like Sister Kathy Lang say they were disappointed in the process the county went through with the sale, especially the decision not to hold a referendum asking voters their opinion.
“Citizens of this county voted you in with faith and trust that you would work for the good of all its citizens, for the youth as well as for the elderly,” said Lang. “It seems that there are examples through the years with past boards and the present board that this has not been the case.”
The resolution to sell Pine Crest passed 14 to 8.
The county is still negotiating with buyers to lease some of the office spaces for county services.
