County board approves plan for Valley Hi operating board

McHenry County's taxpayer-subsidized Valley Hi Nursing Home soon will be under new management.

County board members voted 18-4 Tuesday to establish a semi-independent Valley Hi Operations Board to oversee the Woodstock-area nursing home that serves primarily indigent seniors.

Under the plan, the seven-member panel will include two county board members and five citizen volunteers, with a preference for those with expertise in the health care field. Among its responsibilities will be to oversee staff operations at the home, monitor patient care, review the use of resources and track financial performance and cost control.

Its creation ultimately will lead to the dismantling of the county board's Valley Hi Committee, a panel of board members that performs many of those same functions. That did not sit well with some who believe the new arrangement does not provide enough oversight for the publicly funded facility.

"I think it's a dangerous precedent to eliminate this committee," said board member Randy Donley, who likened it to putting a panel of police officers in charge of the board's law and justice committee or road engineers in charge of the transportation committee. "The voters entrusted us to the county board, and we should do our job."

Most board members, however, did not share Donley's concerns.

"There will be a direct link between this (operating board) and county board," board member Jim Kennedy said, noting the presence of two county board members on the panel. "I think this is the right direction to go."

Besides creating the panel, county officials are interviewing candidates to serve as the home's administrator, a move that could end the county's relationship with Revere Healthcare Ltd., the private firm that has been operating Valley Hi since 2007.