Attorney working with county on sale of health center expected at meeting today
A new year often brings changes, and Washington County has never before marketed a nursing home.
For their first business meeting of the year scheduled for 10 a.m. today, Washington County commissioners invited an attorney from the firm assisting with the sale of Washington County Health Center to discuss a complicated process.
Mark S. Stewart, according to the Eckert Seamans website, has been special counsel to “multiple third-class counties in the privatization of their longtime county nursing homes, as well as for all regulatory, operational and labor matters involving the facility pre-sale.”
Pennsylvania determines classes of counties by population, and Washington is a fourth-class county.
Stewart, who works in Harrisburg, will be issuing a news release and bringing copies of letters being mailed to employees and families of health center patients, said Scott Fergus, Washington County director of administration. Last month, the commissioners agreed to pay Eckert Seamans attorneys $260 an hour for their work in conjunction with a proposed sale. At an agenda-setting session Wednesday, the commissioners briefly heard about requesting proposals and qualifications from a firm to market the 288-bed facility in Arden, Chartiers Township.
County purchasing director Randy Vankirk did not immediately have a timetable for placing an advertisement to secure a marketing company.
“We haven’t even gotten to that yet,” Vankirk said Wednesday. “We’re just asking for approval. Once we get requirements for the bid, we need to go out and find a company to help us in soliciting proposals.”
The health center has been in the red for the past four years, losing $9 million. Commission Chairman Larry Maggi has said the board intends that the facility continue to be used as a nursing home.
“We’re looking for a dollar amount and people who will run a good facility out there, continuing the good quality of care that we’re noted for,” Fergus said Wednesday afternoon.
He added that of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, only 20 continue to own and operate nursing homes. Federal and state reimbursements for patients have diminished over the years as formulas for payment have changed.
The Washington County Health Center, successor to the county home for aged men and a companion facility for aged women, opened in the late 1970s. Those who recall the construction say the county commissioners at the time dedicated the county’s allocation of federal revenue sharing dollars to building the health center. The county’s contract with Service Employees International Union and SEIU-Healthcare expired Dec. 31, but the pact automatically extended into 2017 because the employer is a governmental entity. The county has about 300 employees at the health center.