Fiscal Affairs Director Doran Hamann notes that $1.6 million in Northampton County tax dollars was spent to keep Gracedale afloat in the first quarter. If that trend continues throughout the year, the financially troubled nursing home will cost taxpayers $6.5 million this year.
That's $1 million more than the County budgeted.
Will the trend be reversed? Premier's contract includes a $30,000 annual bonus if it reduces costs. It can also be penalized if it fails to deliver.
While Gracedale is still losing money, publicly-traded nursing homes show record revenues in the first quarter of FY 2012, a whopping 62% more than the same period last year. But at the same time, 35% of America's nursing homes are rated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as below average.
Gracedale is rated "average."
45 comments:
Bottom line...Gracedale is draining money and may include a tax increase to support it. Should have been sold if the vote hadn't "saved it". Masterful slogan by the unions.
And that's the "TRUTH".
Bill, i am sure we will both be attacked. Me, for revealing that Gracedale is over budget. You, for recognizing it.
Of course you are the loyal toadie, still pushing the Stoffa line. He has doctored the numbers in the past, why beleive him now? Please don't say it is the fiscal affairs director, Hammin isn't he is a lifetime bureaucrat who will do as he is told to protect his pension.
The people voted and Stoffa is still trying to sabotage the Home.
While you are at it why not do a report on the $31,00 in tax money Stoffa funneled to the county firm to help you and angle in your private lawsuit. Maybe the money should have been put to helping real people in need.
Hypocrite!
See what I mean? Of course, the personal attack is anonymous.
Gracedale will always require at least a mil of tax per year ...the equivelent of roughly 7 million dollars per year . Get used to it!
We have a closing date. That's the silver lining.
This is why the Obama administration included DEATH PANELS in the Health care legislation.
Leave the old folks alone, go after Bethlehem Twp who subsidizes the healthy people at their tax draining recreation center!
nobama probably wants to unionize death panels
Bernie
Maybe you can explain why the Casino profits are not helping this facility? Wasn't senior care promised or are we wrong?
I think O knows the Supreme Court is going to axe his OCare. His picks on the court have obviously leaked the result. He's out talking about needing a second term to revise the health laws.
The second term option took a big hit with today's jobs report.It all kind of makes local issues seem insignificant.
The Casino fees were instituted for just this sort of thing. They were intended a social impact fees. That could include police and treatment as well as other related human services.
Stoffa was either nuts or stupid and signed away over half of the impact fees to Lehigh county and Allentown. He then made up some of the fees Bethlehem gave away, by giving Bethlehem some more of Northampton's fee. He then adopted the Angle model for disbursement that lets any municipality have a grants for anything.
Want tri-cornered hats for all, no problem get a casino fee grant.
We would not have to worry about helping out most vulnerable people, are elderly,sick poor if we had the millions intended to help. Tthe mullions that Stoffa gave away.
Bernie won't get into that he is still singing the Angle and Stoffa dump Gracedale line. He now has an executive candidate singing the same tune, but secretly. They want the quick cash so dump Gracedale is alive and well, just in hiding at the moment.
Frank
Bill, i am sure we will both be attacked. Me, for revealing that Gracedale is over budget. You, for recognizing it.
Sounds like those responsible for the budget dropped the ball. They should have budgeted more.
"Tri-cornered hats for all"
Blah, blah, blah.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and Socialism really only does work until you run out of other people's money.
Voting for Obama again ain't gonna change that.
You think Gracedale is a problem, I am most worried about the swaption and why the crack Philly Law Firm has not taken care of it and paid it off yet... CAN YOU SAY MASSIVE TAX INCREASE ??
Everything is Bush's fault.
Certainly, not mine!
BARRY
Barry. I blame you.
"35% of America's nursing homes are rated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as below average."
We must strive to insure that none of them are below average.
You know, like the kids in Garrison Keeler's town.
You do realize your roads and bridges in this nation are a form of socialism, right? You do realize, now hoild on to that aluminum foil tri-cornerd hat tightly you teabaggers, any time you poiut a dime towards anyithing that is used by more than just you andf yours, it is socialism. Police, fire, sewer, etc. It is all a form of "socialism".
You idiots need to throw out your old tobaccaky, socialism as you put it has been around since before the Revolutionary War and was reinforced by the first Continental Congress.
Read a book wrtitten by someone other than a Fox Noise apporoved author for Christ sake.
You are embarrissing us to the world. No wonder the Chinnesse will run the world with folks like you and your one dimensional thinking.
screw old people. tear down gracedale and build a skate park for young people
7:57 at least we tea-baggers know how to spell. Go back to the socialist high school where you received your quality education.
Right, the spell check game. So you can be crazy wrong but if you can spell, well....
Ever hear of not seeing the forest through the trees. You teabaggers really have to expand your horizons and your ability to suck it up and stop blaming everyone else for your anger over your miserable existence.
Please do my spell checking, as I have better things to do. Thank you!
This post is about the county contribution to Gracedale, whi ch could be $1MM more than anticipated in the 2012 budget. This has nothing to do with socialism or the tea party. if you want to bash readers, do it somewhere else.
"This post is about the county contribution to Gracedale, whi ch could be $1MM more than anticipated in the 2012 budget. This has nothing to do with socialism or the tea party. if you want to bash readers, do it somewhere else."
Again, it seems as though we should hold those responsible for mismanaging the budget. They are the ones that failed to budget the cost to run the facility.
As usual it is the County Administration that dropped the ball.
"35% of America's nursing homes are rated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as below average."
Shocking. I've also read that a whopping 50% of America's nursing homes are ranked in the bottom half. Wake up America.
OFF topic comment deleted.
I agree. This is the first administration that has so horribly mismanaged Gracedale. Either by omission or commission, they are not very good with budgets.
BO, once again you are bashing the unions, they had nothing to do with the management of Gracedale funds. The administraion at the court house is where the funding comes from! So stop picking on the unions!!!!!!!
There is not one attack directed at any union in this post. I am simply stating that the county contribution to Gracedale may exceed that $5.5 million in county contributions, i.e. tax dollars, slated for it, by a cool million. Maybe it won't. Maybe it will be more. But we need to look, periodically, at how much the county is spending there. Rather than any intelligent response, I've seen the same old tired tea party, non-bashing attacks. The blog supposedly dedicated to Gracedale, instead of proposing any cost saving measures, is actually, a crucible of hatred from a phony preacher. The person from that group, appointed by Stoffa, expressed her gratitude with a vicious attack on that blog.
I can have a decent conversation with people who want to make Graedale work, but those people are just haters.
all gracedale does is bleed money from honest, hard working citizens to feed old people who are about to kick off anyway.
shut it down and allow the worthless union pukes to dig a mass grave for the losers. pay them minimum wage.
at least then the union will have served some useful purpose to society.
Yes Bernie yau and your usual posters like anon 9:12, are doing a great job of resoned discussion.
Why not have a reasoned discussion on how Stoffa never budgeted $31.000++ for your private lawsuit but he spent it anyway.
$31,000 is an estimate based on acutal county communications, it could be more, could be less.
Yet another attempt to deflect attention away from the real issue - Gracedale's cost to taxpayers. If you want to call Stoffa a crook for following a Council resolution, knock yourself out. No court has agreed with you, but don't let that stop you from spinning your wheels on what amounts to bullshit.
let anon 9:54, who is obviously a greedly union puke, break the ground with his union made shovel and add his un-wanted and useless life to the grave of foolishness that gracewaste has become
As a taxpayer and as a concerned citizen, I voted to use property tax dollars to fund the shortfall of dollars needed to operate Gracedale. I recognize the need to improve services and make things more efficient. That is what the 5 year moratorium is supposed to accomplish. If it isn't accomplished, I as well as thousands of others will admit we were wrong, by voting to sell Gracedale after the moratorium expires. In the mean time, comments made by "anonymous
9:12 PM" referring to Gracedale patients as "old people ready to kick off anyway" shows complete ignorance to what Gracedale is all about and you (Bernie) should not tolerate such venemous remarks about the elderly on your Blog. You have the best Blog in the Valley. Why let jerks like anonymous 9:12PM pull it down?
I suspect the comment was posted by someone who wanted to get the kind of reaction you just gave. Instead of dealing logically and rationally, as you have, there is a strong undercurrent of people who have let their emotions take over and who will demonize sale advocates, to the point of impersonating them. Then when the comment is deleted, censorship is claimed.
Since no specific person was mentioned, I allowed the comment to stand. But I agree that this is precisely the kind of rhetoric we should avoid.
Thanks for the nice words.
Don't play the reasoned person O'Hare, you invite comments like the one at 10:20, but delete reactions to it. So now those who point out your errors and the "facts" about Gracedale are Gracedale 'thugs' and the people calling old people a "waste" and employees "pukes" are also Gracedale goons.
How convenient for you and Soffa to have wrapped everything up in such a neat package.
As to the five year moratorium. There will be no automatic vote to sell Gracedale after five years, unless the county executive or council wishes to do so. Many if not most people realize that half of the five years are being overseen by John Stoffa, who has tried to sell Gracedale and has been in no real hurry to fix it.
So, I as others, could claim that some comments while cloaked in the shell of reason are really veiled attacks. In five years there will be no one on council or in the executive chair who will want to dump Gracedale. So you will need to get 20,000 signatures for another vote. Good Luck!
Not fooled Jack
See what I mean?
Bernie, why don't you tell your readers how your friend John Stoffa cost the taxpayers more than 15 million by not paying the swaption down when it was under 10 million. And since you are saying that Gracedale MAY BE (and not is)a million over budget, tell them that John cost them over 1 million by not paying the swaption down at 25 million, and it is now over 26 million in the last few months. Gracedale could have done very well with 16 million over the next five years but instead stoffa continues to squander our tax dollars. Tell the truth for once Bernie.
Tony M
Tony M, who most certainly is not Tony M and lacks the courage to identify himself, is trying to deflect attention away from Gracedale's cost to county taxpayers. He is also attempting to blame Stoffa for Reibman's folly. That $25 million mistake, along with the demolition of a state-of-the-art archives building, can be laid at his doorstep. But haters like the Fake Rev would have you believe Stoffa is responsible for that as well as the hailstorm we just had. Anything to keep you from looking into what really is happening.
Off topic comments that attempt to deflect attention away from Gracedale will be deleted.
this is only an emotionalissue for those who are emotionally disturbed.
logic dictates that this white elephant must go along with the greed of the unions who support it.
it'a a business. not a charity.
most elected people are only capable of reacting to emotions, not running a business
shut it down or sell it to a company who is in the business
It is a home you shit head. You people are just stupid cold bastards.
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