Published: July 22, 2008 11:38 am            

Anxious times at Laurel Crest | Consecutive budgets showing red

After five profitable years, Laurel Crest is on target to post a second straight year in the red. That’s very distressing but not really unexpected.

On the upside, the nursing-care center’s administrator, Deborah Nesbella, is already on record as saying “we don’t anticipate a budget loss for 2009 at all.”

We hope she’s right, but Laurel Crest’s history is full of ups and downs and we’ve come to learn that a lot can go wrong during the course of a year.

Here’s the good news in the latest report, detailed last week: After incurring a huge deficit of $3.5 million in 2007, the Ebensburg-area complex is expected to come up short by about $1.9 million in the current budget. That’s an improvement from the $2.7 million loss that was anticipated for 2008 when the budget was adopted in December.

“It’s grim, but we’re showing improvement,” President Commissioner P.J. Stevens said.

According to Nesbella, monthly losses this year have been in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, although the home realized a $176,000 profit in June.

After posting a loss of more than $400,000 in 2001, Laurel Crest went through profitable years in 2002 through 2006, three of which were $1 million or more. Then came a very troubling 2007, when state inspectors found deficiencies serious enough that the home was put on provisional licenses.

A full license later was reinstated.

In recent history, several major changes have been made, including in top administrative positions. In addition, there’s been a personnel shakeup to assure more employees are assigned to nursing care.

“The key to moving forward is that, as our staff levels rise (for nursing care), we can accommodate additional residents,” Stevens said.

At this point, we join other interested onlookers in hoping that the right decisions are being made.

We do believe the county commissioners and home administrators have been upfront in keeping the public posted, and that is important.

While we still believe the county should get out of the nursing-care business, we know that is not on the commissioners’ agenda anytime soon.

The $3.5 million loss for 2007 did not impact the county’s general fund budget because Laurel Crest has a positive fund balance to cover those losses.

That’s more good news.

But should the home incur more million-dollar losses, it could become a real problem for the county and its taxpayers.

We’ll be keeping a close watch over the next several months.

        

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