Washington County approves budget, again hears calls not to sell senior center
Pat Cloonan|Herald-Standard
Mary Cheek of Washington, a three-year employee of the Washington County Health Center, appeals to the county commissioners not to sell the center for senior citizens in Chartiers Township.
Pat Cloonan|Herald-Standard
Employees of the Washington County Health Center again show up at the county board of commissioners meeting Thursday with signs showing their opposition to county plans to sell the facility in Chartiers Township. Commission Chairman Larry Maggi said the county needs to “stop the bleeding” of millions of taxpayer dollars lost in the operation of that center in recent years.
As expected, the Washington County board of commissioners passed a $178 million 2017 budget that turns a 24.9-mill tax rate into a 2.43-mill levy, though with no change in tax bills for property owners.
Specifically, the county said Thursday it will put 2.27 mills toward general purposes and the remaining 0.16 mills toward debt purposes. The change accompanies a change in how taxes will be determined, from 25 percent of property values in a 1981 assessment to 100 percent of values in the county’s recent reassessment.
The budget includes $89.8 million in general fund spending.
Also as expected, employees at the Washington County Health Center were back at Thursday’s board meeting with pickets, protesting the county’s plans to sell the 288-bed licensed nursing facility handling senior care in Chartiers Township.
The retirement of center employees Marsha Dykins and Tonna Parker provided a platform for some of the comments at Thursday’s meeting that again urged the county to reconsider that move.
“We were forced as old-timers to make a decision we were not ready to make,” Dykins said as she held a plaque she just received from the commissioners. She’s 60 — and said she could have continued working there until she was 62.
“For the residents there, this is their home,” said Mary Cheek, another of the Service Employees International Union members working there — in her case in one of two dementia units. “They deserve dignity and quality of life.”
Cheek and other SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members predicted that such dignity and quality of life would not happen if the center is sold.
“We were notified for everything,” said Sheri Morris, whose mother was a resident of the center from 2000-12. “It was a comfort for her to be there. These people care about our families as if they were theirs.”
Cheek predicted that new owners likely would lay off all the staff, including 300 SEIU members.
“If the Health Center is sold to a private company, there will be changes,” said employee Angela Smith, who told the commissioners she’s 38 “and a registered voter.”
“We’ve seen it happen to county home after county home,” Cheek said, referring to the situation elsewhere in Pennsylvania. “I hope you will work with us to find a solution.”
The county has been negotiating a new contract with the SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania members. County Administrator Scott Fergus said talks are scheduled to resume after Christmas, though with an eye toward the impact of a sale.
The commissioners quietly listened to the comments and even applauded some speakers. Board chairman Larry Maggi later reiterated that the county has done all it can to “stop the bleeding” of millions of taxpayer dollars.
“We have to do everything we can to stop that, to protect the taxpayer,” Maggi said. “We, over the last several years, have been trying to get things under control. We’ve had studies. We’ve had consultants try to stop the bleeding.”
Center employee Lee Ann Howell questioned whether the county was listening to those consultants, saying the operational and financial review of the center issued in October showed a need for more efficient management and adjustments to such areas as dietary costs.
Howell said such inefficiencies meant an “$8,000 to $25,000 loss per resident” for the county.
The board approved the hiring of attorneys from the Pittsburgh office of Eckerd Seamans Cherin and Mellott to represent the county in its process of selling the Chartiers Township facility, at a cost of $260 an hour plus “incidental costs.”
In other business Thursday, the commissioners approved reappointments for five county authorities, boards and commissions, as well as Michael Silvestri as a representative to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission board and 17 county residents to the SPC Public Participation Panels.
The board approved an additional $7,550 payment to Greater Lakes EZ-Dock for work on a kayak and canoe launch on the Monongahela River in Charleroi. That brings to $144,162.53 the total for a combined project involving launches in Charleroi, Fredericktown and Monongahela.
Contracts approved Thursday include a $84,231 purchase of health care services for the coming year from Washington Physician Hospital Organization Inc. for the county’s correctional facility, as well as a three-year lease of radio equipment for the prison from Staley Communications Inc. for $3,865.04 a year.
For Children and Youth Services the board approved purchase of service provider agreements with a previously-approved list of providers for $1.18 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017. Also for CYS a $52,750 special budget was approved for the calendar year 2017.