In a tumultuous meeting with several moments of drama and many unanswered questions, the Champaign County Board voted 21-4 to put the county's Nursing Home on life support on the evening of June 19th. There were many promises made to the public, most of who expressed varying degrees of skepticism, from Libertarian rejection of any further resources being devoted to the home all the way across the spectrum to Green embrace of the value of sustaining local institutions by taking responsibility for the home in the absence of adequate state and federal funding.

Board members swore that the county's Living Wage policy for all its workers, in place since 2002, was not threatened by tonight’s decision. However, the vague answers given to why those earning the Living Wage as nursing home dietetic, laundry, and janitorial workers were the first laid off were only exceeded by the fact that their fate and that of many other nursing home workers would hang in the air of future decisions about contracting out and collective bargaining informed by the apparently anti-union agenda of the management contractor, Management Performance Associates (MPA) of St. Louis, Missouri.

MPA was hired about 18 months ago to provide consulting services to stabilize the nursing home's shaky finances. The limited support the home receives from the property tax was further impacted by irresponsible cuts in Medicaid funding from the state of Illinois since then. Apparently Gov. Blagojevich and the state legislature wants state funding for healthcare for all to be financed by cuts in aid that formerly provided for our elders. Still, it’s hard to argue that MPA’s already paid for advice made much difference in how we got to where we are today.

The scorecard for the night ended up like this:

Republicans -- the big winners in the evening's ideological battle -- avoided any future funding to sustain the nursing home by writing into the contract a clause that foresees reducing some $2 million in red ink this year into a tiny deficit of just $161,000 next year with _only_ the current resources. One Green Party candidate, Joe Futrelle, noted that MPA would have to invent a "nurse retention machine" or other hocus-pocus to meet that goal. Given the other demands on nursing home funds, this will only be possible if the county board was to construct a way to provide more funding. Unfortunately, those Democrats who supported the MPA contract are now stuck with a promise that the home will get no new funding. More on this later.

The Beckettcrats, who are strange beasts composed of a donkey's ass with the head and shoulders of a pachyderm, claim to have built a "nursing home saving machine," but it's unclear where the money for this will come from other than through cuts in nursing home workers or patient care. What they hope is certain is that the 3-year MPA contract will get them past the November election and possibly the 2010 election before real Democratic voters catch wind of what's really happening with the nursing home. In exchange for a promise to give the nursing home no further support, they "won" Republicans over to the idea that the promise of a free ride past any votes to support the home in the future beats walking in the sun of a long pull to actually fully funding the nursing home between now and election day in November.

Effectively, the Beckettcrats hope to insulate themselves from responsibility for the negative outcomes precipitated by their self-interested leadership, which was represented by the haranguing voice of Steve Beckett telling Jennifer Putman that she was going too far in asking for a few questions to be answered before the vote. Where the real power laid in this chamber of Democratic Horrors was amply on display, with Beckett belittling Board Chair Pius Wiebel, insisting that he call on Beckett first whenever Beckett's grown tired of listening to others and wants to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Jennifer Putman stood strong against Beckett's juvenile display and voted, along with Lloyd Carter, Jr., Lorraine Cowart and newly appointed board member Carol Ammons, against signing a blank check contract with MPA, the Republicans, and the Beckettcrats. Ammons actually opened the board's discussion with a series of powerful arguments about what was either lacking or missing entirely from a management contract that should be in the best interests of Champaign County residents.

Essentially, the contract with MPA simply adds further costs to the management of the nursing home, with no required benchmarks, other than to cut losses from more than $2 million this year to no more than the promised $161,000 next year. It's clear from what was said and the votes cast tonight that the county is unwilling to make any further commitment to funding the home, no matter what the reason may be. Unfortunately, the MPA contract is loaded with just the sort of reasons for extra funding that will either require more revenue or drastic and most likely untenable cuts in the operations of the nursing home.

First, MPA gets $180,000 a year for doing what is most likely giving more of the same bad advice the board has paid them for in the last 18 months.

Second, MPA has already recommended that a $50,000 software package needs to be purchased to do the accounting improvements they promised the board.

Third, any outside consultants that MPA recommends must be paid for by the county.

Fourth, all travel expenses involved in MPA's operation of the home will be paid for by the county, over and above the $180,000 for the management contract itself.

Fifth, on top of the $592,000 that accumulated during MPA's most recent period of advising the county about its operation of the home, a further $300,000 in revenue stands to be lost due to the suspension of payments by the state because of recent issues involved in inspections related to unfortunate incidents at the home.

Ironically, the $300k in loses is related to the only bright spot in the evening's sparring, which was that the county board decided to open the books about the first closed session of the evening. Sadly, it will remain one more example of the unfunded mandates that the more bombastic board members seem all too eager to push aside and force onto workers and patients at the home. This makes no sense, but neither do many things in government these days.

The nursing home is running on empty, something confirmed by its recent negative high profile in local news and the failure to produce a complete audit of the nursing home’s finances. Both boards seemed more inclined to fiddle while the home burns than to aggressively pursue anything beyond promoting more promises and quick fixes to the home’s residents, the workers, and the public that has supported the home whenever it was given a chance.

Sadly, the home will probably not get a second chance. It’s in a coma, on life support, and the board is arguing over whether to puree a burger to feed her in order to see if something so simple as providing more resources vie a referendum will be what is needed to turn it around. The whole point of tonight’s dog and pony show was to get the public to take their eye off the ball of fully funding the home, by using the concocted crisis as a reason to quit feeding it at all, even though they know that could save it.

After the public was allowed to re-enter the board room, they were advised of the series of events and regulatory failings that prompted the closed session. This was about the only area of tonight’s three ring circus that this writer substantially agreed with. While the incidents discussed vary in seriousness -- with one sadly resulting in the early death of a patient -- it was reassuring that the light of transparency demonstrated that most of the deficiencies were of a minor nature, except for the fact that a staff now even further burdened by cuts in staffing will need to work that much harder to avoid any further irritations under the uneven and frankly duplicitous inspection regime emanating from Springfield these days.

Thus, the actual losses and costs already obvious under the contract represent stand closer to $1 million than the $592,000 "final" loan to be made to the nursing home from the county's general fund. Despite the notion that the home will be saved by the hiring of MPA and the loan of what might help it partially catch up with unpaid bills, it's already obvious that revenues will most likely never catch up with costs under the current penurious funding scheme that has barely sustained the nursing home for the last 6 years.

Was there any real solution on the table tonight? It's hard to say. Despite the calls of several speakers from the public, the board refused to even consider that more revenue is part of the cure needed to restore the home to fiscal health. Is asking for a referendum in time to be placed on the November ballot a possibility? It seems unlikely at this point and must be done no later than August, given the failure to put this on the night's agenda in order to integrate adequate funding into a holistic solution to address the fiscal problems at the home.

Feeding the public more smoke and mirrors BS about "accountability" seemed more important to those voting in support of the MPA contract. Naturally, the hope is that whatever temporary funds needed to help catch the home up will be covered with the last-ditch loan from the county's general fund to get the home safely through the November election. If the contract lasts for the full three years it projects, the end date of the MPA contract will also put a renewal past the 2010 election.

The only way the public can do anything about this is to continue to closely watch the county board and the new nursing home board. Although audits of the nursing home books were again promised "soon," it was again amazing how such big decisions can be made on the basis of optimistic financial projections that already appear to be untrue among lots of duplicitous rhetoric.

What is clear is that the Champaign County Nursing Home now lies in its sickbed, most likely in a coma, on life support, but with the feeding tube gently pulled from her lips.

These decisions and most of the discourse from board members who supported the MPA contract support the conclusion that -- no matter how much they say they want to support the home -- the only way they'll do so is if it never costs the county another penny than is already budgeted. With the new nursing home board, the county board has distanced itself from any control over what happens there, except for paying any bills that come from MPA. Contracting with MPA only adds to the existing problems, which its past advice failed to heal. But if it will soon be over, why bother feeding the patient? The twisted morality of fiscal rectitude might justify that, but real concern over the nursing home's health was in short supply compared to fancy expressions of caring followed tonight by what the board actually thinks the home is worth – not another penny.

It's sad that they won't bother to ask the public what it thinks.