Published: October 06, 2008 11:19 pm      

Nursing home gets increase in budget

DANVILLE — Vermilion Manor Nursing Home requested and received an unusual budget ordinance Monday night.

The county-owned nursing home brought an ordinance to the Vermilion County Board Finance Committee asking for an increase in its budget revenue for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

Joann Darr, administrator for the nursing home, said the revenues were to be increased by $1.02 million as a result of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Bed count at the facility has gone up by 15 compared to last year.

With the additional revenues comes a jump in expenditures of just more than $660,000 — an increase that was expected.

Darr said part of the reason is patients require more assistance than ever before. Vermilion Manor has begun to admit bariatric (obese) patients and utilizes new nutrition setups for others.

“It’s heavy-duty care,” Darr said. “A lot more than we’re used to.”

She said Vermilion Manor is seeing more short-term patients who use the facility to recuperate for operations such as knee or hip replacement.

Also at Monday’s meeting, committee members debated the decision behind awarding a copier contract to the low bidder.

Committee Chairman Bill Donahue told committee members the approximately $200,000 contract was awarded to CDS Office Technologies based on a number of factors, including dissatisfaction with most recent contract holder Watts Copy Systems.

He noted that some county department holders were unhappy with Watts while others flat-out refused to let the company into their office.

Greg Wolfe, one of the contract bidders, spoke at the meeting, asking the committee to “do what is right” in reference to a letter of protest sent to committee members.

Donahue said the county followed procedure, opting for the low price to save taxpayers.

“Money’s money and you’re going to have protests when you have a big contract,” he said.

Part of the issue was over the process of allowing all parties to re-bid after the county cut the amount of copies expected by one-third.