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Still paying toward home
Commissioners have been criticized about their continued support of the former nursing home.
MERCER, Pa. — With yet another bond payment to be made this week, Mercer County commissioners fired back at critics in a letter to the public explaining their handling of the Woodland Place financial situation.
Commissioners had been criticized in an area newspaper because next week they will pay a $205,835 interest payment on the $8.8 million bond that a previous board of commissioners guaranteed.
Woodland Place, the former county nursing home and now operated as a nonprofit entity, has been financially unable to make all but $115,000 of the bond payments. The county has so far paid $2.05 million on the bond not including the payment that will be made Monday.
In a letter released Thursday, commissioners state that foreclosing on the nursing home or selling it won’t save any money because the bond payments would still have to be made for four more years before, under terms of the agreement, the debt could be closed out early in 2013 at some savings with a balloon payment.
Commissioner John Lechner hinted commissioners may be ready to take some sort of action.
“We’re in some very serious negotiations at the present time,” he said, but added, “We still cannot release what we are doing.”
Commissioners have stated in the past their goal is to keep the home open and retain jobs at the nursing home as well as about 95 residents at the home at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers.
After discussion on Woodland Place, the commissioners agreed to eliminate two clerical assistant and two administrative assistant positions in District Attorney Robert Kochems’ office and replace them with four paralegal assistant positions.
The action places all in the salaried job classification while previously the clerical assistants were hourly and the administrative assistants were salaried positions.
Kochems said all were doing similar jobs and the change makes for fairer treatment and only a minor difference in wages. The hourly jobs affected were nonunion.
The commissioners also handled these matters at their Thursday meeting:
UAgreed to again let Community Action Partnership of Mercer County again serve as financial pass-through for the Weed and Seed and Operation Nightlight Programs. As contractor, CAP receives $25,000 for the anti-crime program in Sharon and Farrell.
UAccepted state Department of Public Welfare money to continue several programs for Children and Youth Services until 2001. These included a $504,756 Family Center Grant each for the county and for the Greenville School District. These grants fund programs aimed at economic self-sufficiency including adult education and training programs. They also accepted two $495,000 grants for the Time Limited Family Reunification grant for the same time period. These grants provide staff to work with families who have a child in CYS placement with the goal of reunification of the families.