WCCC Applies for $20,982 USDA Grant

The Worth County Convalescent Center Board voted to apply for a USDA grant to partially pay for the heating project for the facility. They applied for $20,982 following a public hearing on the proposal.
The financial picture showed good and bad news. One piece of good news was that there was a net income of $3,800 for this month. But Kathy Miller and other board members said that they wanted to see a more detailed breakdown of the facility’s financial picture; they wanted to see a breakdown of what was owed by the state and what was owed by private patients.
Last year, accountant Danny Marsh had worked on identifying bad debts for the facility but board members said that they wanted to see more. “We want to look at our books and be confident of what we are approving,” said Miller, saying that they had been having the same conversations about this last year.
Theoretically, Miller said that there was $288,000 in receivables, but she said that she feared that much of that money was on paper and didn’t know how much of it was current debt and how much of it was old debt from a year ago.
The one-time reimbursement that the WCCC got in February helped with the budget, but bed capacity was at 46%, which led board members into an extended discussion about marketing the facility. Also, utility bills have been going up since October despite the facility putting in a new heating and cooling system.
The board decided to table the financial report for the present.
Next on the agenda for the WCCC was to renovate the rooms to approve the appearance. They are currently in the process of renovating one private room, after which board members will look at it and make recommendations. Carpeting was also discussed, with board members looking at samples of carpet that could be used. Administrator Karen Fletchall will get measurements and quotes on carpet tiles.
The facility is in the process of creating some private rooms for residents with structural modifications. The difficulty with doing too many at a time is that there might not be a room available if a new resident comes in, but the ultimate goal for the facility is to redo all the rooms to make them more attractive and meet the needs of the facility better.
Administrator Karen Fletchall proposed that the facility give life insurance to all its employees at an annual cost of $2620.80 from the current health insurance provider. The proposal was tabled until the next meeting until administration could determine who was full-time and who was part-time and determine eligibility.
Board Member Mike Hall said that the facility needed to talk about doing a marketing campaign to attract more people. He said that he had talked to employees and that the WCCC was currently losing employees because they were working part-time instead of full-time because of the shortage of residents at the facility.
Cost options were discussed for promoting the facility. The school and the WCCC are currently two of the biggest employers of the county. Currently, the WCCC has 42 employed.