7/28/2019 Albany County Legislator Urges -- Nichols
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For Immediate Release
July 9, 2013
For More Information
Contact: Tim Nichols
ALBANY COUNTY LEGISLATOR URGES COMPROMISE ON NURSING HOME
Albany County Legislator Tim Nichols (D-Latham) is urging
County
Executive Dan McCoy to approve legislation passed by the
legislation
last night that could lay the groundwork for hiring a
management
consulting firm for the countys nursing home.
We have a great opportunity to forge a compromise regarding
the
nursing home, Nichols said. This commonsense,
middle-of-the-road
proposal will bring in a management firm that can help us
immediately
start saving taxpayer dollars and help us put the nursing back
on a
path to sustainability.
The plan, based on a response by the firm, Lowell Feldman,
Martin
Liebman and Larry Slatky, to an RFP issued last year, would
allow the
firm to come into the county, offer guidance and advice on ways
to
raise revenue for the nursing home and bring down costs.
Eventually,
under a Local Development Corporation (LDC) one member of the
firm,
Larry Slatky, would be the day-to-day operator of the nursing
home.
This firm has decades of experience running high quality nursing
homes
and these guys are leaders in their industry, Nichols said.
Mr.
Slatky was recently named Nursing Home Administrator of the
Year
nationally because of the success he has had running Nassau
Countys
nursing home. We have a great opportunity to start making
progress
immediately with our nursing home if only County Executive Dan
McCoy
would see the wisdom of compromising.
Nichols said that McCoys original proposal goes too far because
it
would completely privatize the nursing home by giving it to a
for-
profit conglomerate called Upstate Services Group (USG) while at
the
same time providing USG with a corporate welfare check of $10
million.
The idea that we not only give away an invaluable county asset,
our
nursing home, but then underwrite the risk for the buyers by
handing
them a $10 million corporate welfare check is outrageously
extreme and
a non-starter with most Democratic lawmakers, Nichols said
Should the
proposal somehow make it through the Legislature, labor unions
will
file lawsuits that will delay the implementation of entire plan.
That
is what is happening right now in Suffolk County.
Nichols said the departure of the current nursing home director,
Gene
Larabee, and the fact that labor union contracts expire at the
end of
this year means now is the best time to act.
We can bring this team aboard now with Mr. Larabees
departure,
working with our labor unions on their contracts and start
making real
progress, Nichols said. Or McCoy can dig in, continue
fighting,
