Op-Ed From Steve Levy: Nursing Home Saga Illustrates Legislative Malpractice

The Suffolk County Nursing Home will close this summer.  What a shame! What a waste! What an example of legislative malpractice!  

Years ago, I presented a proposal that would have garnered the county $36 million for the sale to a private owner, and provide further savings by eliminating the annual subsidy of approximately $10 to $12 million borne by taxpayers.

The deal I structured would have kept patients in their present beds, while even giving the employees the opportunity to continue to work for the new private employer, albeit in a different union and with a slightly less generous benefit packages.   

Had this sale been consummated, the county would have saved in excess of $60 million over the past several years, which, ironically, is approximately the same amount of the 2011 budget shortfall.  The budget I submitted that year was balanced and included proceeds that we would derive from the sale or closure of the facility. 

But in an act of unprecedented irresponsibility, the legislature accepted the closure, took the money that would materialize therefrom, and used it to fund their district projects.  But then, remarkably, the legislature joined with the union to stop the sale or closure. 

You cannot make this stuff up!  They sued knowing that they already spent the money and knowing they were creating an instant deficit.  

The level of irrational behavior and union pandering reached astonishing heights:  

1)     The law suit was litigated by a former chief deputy county executive, who upon leaving the county government was retained by the very same union that he opposed when he was overseeing the management of the very same nursing home he was now suing.

2 )     A legislator whose wife and sister-in-law worked at the nursing home was introducing bills to hamper my ability to close or sell the facility, prompting my administration to seek ethics opinions to halt these activities, as well as the involvement of the former chief deputy in working for the union against the county's interests. (Who would believe then, that later, I would be the one criticized by legislators for allegedly using the ethics committee in a politically motivated manner simply because I wanted to stop what we believed to be conflicts against the taxpayers.)

3)     The presiding officer wrote a letter, signed by numerous other legislators, telling the state that Suffolk DID NOT WANT the $20 million in state grants that were slated for the county were we to close or sell the home.    

The current County Executive Steve Bellone ran for office refusing to take a stand on this issue – indeed, even adopting the line of the irresponsible legislators that my administration somehow mismanaged the facility.  What Mr. Bellone found out upon taking office was that I was right. 

The home is unprofitable not because of anything former County Executives did, but rather, because of the high cost and restrictive regulations inherent in the public center contracts. 

This is the reason that not a single public nursing home in the state operates in the black and why numerous counties, through the prodding of the state, have been privatizing these homes for years.   

But, perhaps most unfortunate is that the patients and their family members who relied on the grand promises of certain legislators were so thoroughly duped.  The misinformation from legislators was outrageous and now is coming home to roost. 

One repeated falsehood is that there is no other place for the patients. Well, the home is now closing. and the patients are not being thrown out on the street. 

There are over 40 other private homes in Suffolk and almost all of the patients are Medicaid eligible, something that was not the case when the original nursing home, a/k/a the Alms (poor) House, was opened over a century ago.   

So the legislators who fought the sale have won; they have gotten their way. And what did they win? The patients are being displaced, and the union employees they were pandering to will soon be out of jobs. And, of course, there was another loser -- the Suffolk taxpayer, who saw legislators place the agenda of 200 employees over the needs of 1.5 million residents – the ultimate "tail wagging the dog" episode.   

Perhaps, finally, the employees, the patients and their families will realize that these legislators led them down a path of ruin. Such a shame, such a waste!