The Nursing Home Board rescinded a food study that they had approved last week after almost 15 employees showed up to last Wednesday’s meeting to protest the move. The move would have meant that employees would not have been allowed to have meals at the facility while the two-month study was being conducted. The meeting was marred by several shouting matches between board member Eddie Costin, who had pushed for the study, and employees and other board members.
Resident Jerry Dignan opened the meeting blasting the board for their move. "We were one big happy family before Wednesday," he said. "There is no use cutting off the employees like that. We can figure out how much the food costs each month without punishing the employees." Acting administrator Jozy Moyer reported to the board that the staff was very upset over the move. "That seems like a long time," said board president Andy Welch. "We can average out how much it cost over the last three months."
Moyer provided figures to the board showing that only a small fraction of the food was going to the employees and that 95% of the food was going for the residents. For instance, in February, there were $8,433.60 in raw food costs for the residents while there were only $380 worth of employee meals for that month. Employees and visitors currently pay $2 per meal, which was the approximate raw food cost for meals before January and February, when food prices went up. In addition, the figures provided by Moyer showed that the cost per meal for raw food for employees and resident was lower than raw food for residents only; the raw food cost in February for residents and employees per meal was $2.66, while the cost for residents only was $2.83. In February, 2008, there were 2.979 meals provided to residents and 190 meals provided to employees.
Dignan said that there were other problems with the move. He said that since employees could not eat meals at the facility, they would go to Casey’s or Country Corners to get food; that means that not everybody would be there in the event of an emergency. "If we have an emergency, we need everyone to pull together," he said.
Brenda Comer, an employee at the WCCC, acted as the spokeswoman for the employees. "If it’s lunch break, we may only have five people to evacuate the building," she said. She said that in some cases, employees might get called into work and that they would not have time to get food because they lived in some other town; that meant that they might not get to eat at all. "This shows a lack of respect for us as employees," she said. "It creates constant turmoil and makes everyone really uneasy."
Board Member Wilbur Osborne, who voted for the proposal initially, changed his mind, saying, "I was wrong. I am satisfied that all of the food is being strictly accounted for."
Eddie Costin held out for the study, saying that "little things are killing us;" however, Board Member Kaye Havner, who opposed the study initially, made a motion to rescind it. The board voted to rescind the food study and decided to keep the meal prices the same, unless food prices continued to rise.
Moyer reported that the WCCC would be reimbursed $17,000 from FEMA for disaster relief from the ice storm. She also reported that the facility had lost two residents, bringing them down to 33 residents.
Discussion then returned to Costin’s proposal to grant retroactive raises for 17 employees whose wages were frozen in August; Moyer said that she figured that it would cost $3,259 to grant the raises. But Dignan and Calhoon argued for waiting until August 1st, saying that the facility needed to accumulate money and see where they were at first. "They deserve to have their raises," said Costin. "They deserve to have their raises; otherwise, what else do they have to look forward to?"
Costin then suggested that the facility cut costs by replacing Comer with someone who the center could be several thousand dollars a year less. As the other board members and employees were shouting Costin down, Comer walked up to Costin. "I do my job here," she said. "I could go and make three times what I make here, but I don’t because we’re one huge family here." Other employees protested that Comer had held the place together during the financial crisis last year and that the facility could not afford to replace her.
"Were lucky to have the kind of people that we do," said Comer to the Express after the meeting. "Everywhere else, there are severe nursing shortages; while we don’t have that here. We need to keep it that way."
After the furor had subsided, Jerry Dignan said that the retroactive raise that Costin proposed would affect all 45 people and not just the 17 who were affected since August. "Well, if you have so much concern for the employees, then why don’t you give them the raises?" asked Costin. "Well, what about the building?" asked Dignan. "We have to raise income," answered Costin.
"It’s something that we want to do, but it is something that we simply can’t afford," said board president Andy Welch. Comer added that while the employees did not like the freeze, they understood that it was necessary. "Even after we’ve gotten the new tax revenues, we were still in the hole two months out of the last four," said Bill Calhoon. Costin’s motion for the retroactive pay raises died due to a lack of second.
But Costin was not finished. "Last year, we lost $97,000. We need an audit to find out where all the money went," he said to Moyer. "You told us you would come back with figures for what an audit would cost." "You see the reports, you see everything," responded Wilbur Osborn. "You know where the money goes; it’s in the monthly reports."
"Well, how come we started losing money when [former administrator] Charlie Green took over," asked Costin. That led to another shouting match, which led Andy Welch to say to Costin, "Now, stop it. You’ve insulted two people today." Green and Moyer had previously produced figures to the Quad River News last summer that the facility had been losing money for several years due to state and federal budget cuts.
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