A vote on the future of the Albany County Nursing Home has been tabled despite earlier signs legislators were narrowing in on a vote.
The Audit and Finance Committee held a special meeting on Friday, April 5, regarding the plan to sign a deal with Upstate Services Group to lease the county-run nursing home. The 10-year lease would save the county more than $100 million, Albany County Executive Dan McCoy has said. Instead, the plan was tabled for 30 days.
Albany County executive spokeswoman Mary Rozak after a County Legislature meeting on Monday, April 8, accused lawmakers of using a “stall tactic.”
“It’s very disappointing. The county executive is disappointed because he’s been asked and answered repeatedly all kinds of questions and provided answers consistently. This appears to be nothing more than a stall tactic,” she said.
Rozak said each month the vote is delayed, the county loses another $1 million.
“Since January, we’ve already lost $3 million. We can’t afford to continue losing that,” she said.
County legislators like Tim Nichols, D-Latham, continue to say that not all of the information on the USG lease is being presented and that the deal has loopholes.
“It is a sweetheart deal on steroids. It is bad news for the taxpayers of this county,” Nichols said. “I’m very uncomfortable with privatizing the nursing home.”
Nichols said the lease “explicitly says certain types of people won’t be admitted,” including seniors with traumatic brain injuries and combative mental health issues.
“The problem is that the lease pretends to keep a safety net. I say pretend because there’s loopholes in that lease. A public facility is there for people who have no place to go … I don’t care what the lease says, the private entity is going to be able to do whatever they want when it comes to who they accept into their facility,” Nichols said. “We have no way to enforce it.”
Nichols said that the legislature still “need(s) time to look at the lease fully,” but added lawmakers are looking at alternatives to signing with USG. Nichols suggested working with nursing home operators Lowell Feldman and Martin Liebman, an option that would not require privatization, but would have the company overseeing the day-to-day operation of the nursing home and looking for ways to bring income in.
Rozak said Feldman was an operator of Albany’s Julie Blair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and the Department of Heath “determined the residents were in imminent danger,” revoked the license and putting USG in charge of that nursing home. She said that information had been sent to the Audit and Finance Committee prior to the meeting but nothing was done about it.
“It’s very ironic,” she said.
Legislature Chairman Shawn Morse said calling the body’s actions a stall tactic was “absolutely the furthest thing from the truth.”
“I think the right thing to do when you’re making a decision of this magnitude is to really take your time. Only then can you really cast a vote that’s based on solid facts than emotion. This is an emotional thing … people are coming down here crying,” Morse said.
Morse said he does believe the vote will happen soon.
“I think everybody’s prepared to make their vote. I’m happy they’re putting that much time into looking into it,” he said.