Split board puts private firm in charge of nursing home

A sharply divided McHenry County Board voted Tuesday night to turn over operations of its year-old Valley Hi Nursing Home to a private firm hired with a mission to eliminate management problems that saw the facility spend nearly $2 million more than it brought in last year.

By a 13-11 vote, the board agreed to pay Cary-based Revere Healthcare Ltd. $270,000 a year, plus a separate administrator's salary, to manage the $14 million home for at least the next two years.

"This is an investment in the future of Valley Hi," board Chairman Ken Koehler said. "We have to come up with a better way to manage the asset that we have."

The decision came after a wild 90-minute debate during which an initial 12-12 vote killed the measure, only to see it brought back through some on-the-floor horse trading over who would oversee the management firm's activities over the next three months.

Although that failed, a second vote on the original Revere contract passed 13-11 after board member Mary Donner changed her initial vote against the deal to one in favor of it.

Opponents of the plan argued that it was too expensive, especially with no guarantees that Revere could do any better of a job turning around the Woodstock-area home's fortunes than the county hiring a new administrator on its own at significantly lower cost.

"We can find a way to do this on our own," said Mary Lou Zierer, chairman of the county board's Valley Hi Committee. "We can do it with a lot less money spent."

The plan also raised concerns among Valley Hi staff and people with loved ones in the facility. Woodstock resident Mary Light, a nurse at the home who also has her father living there, said four of her co-workers resigned recently over planned changes.

"We had something really good going there and I'm afraid for my dad," she said.

But the measure's supporters say the board and county staff lacks the expertise to manage a modern-day nursing home and fix the business-related problems that have dogged the facility in recent months.

"Some things are expensive when you need to do things the right way and get back on your feet," board member Jim Kennedy said. "I think that this is the right thing for the residents and families out there."

The question of what to do with Valley Hi has been before county board members since July when an audit of the facility found that its annual revenues had fallen about $2 million behind its expenses and declared the home "managerially dysfunctional."

The report led to the abrupt resignation of Valley Hi Administrator Timothy Wenberg and calls from some county board members to hire a private company to run the home for lower-income seniors.