Knox County Board talks nursing home advisory committee

Oct. 25--GALESBURG -- The Knox County Board further discussed the possibility of creating a volunteer committee to advise the board on the operations of the Knox County Nursing Home during an otherwise routine meeting Wednesday.

The board's Nursing Home Committee supports the idea of creating an advisory panel of volunteers similar to the Knox CountyBoard of Health that would advise the County Board on how to improve the nursing home's finances and operations. The Nursing Home Committee would seek approximately five to eight volunteers who have technical knowledge of finances in the medical field and in retirement communities, including how to correctly process insurance claims. The nursing home is working to recover $1.2 million in outstanding bills from individual insurance claims that the county's auditor found had not been processed correctly by nursing home staff.

Board member John Hunigan, D-District 2, said he hoped to ensure the committee would choose volunteers who would look at the nursing home "on a very objective basis" and not try to "steer the direction of where the nursing home should go." Board member Jared Hawkinson, R-District 4, said the County Board would still have control and decide whether or not to approve the committee's recommendations and how to adapt to them.

"We'll take any help we can get," Hawkinson said. "I'm not a nursing home administrator by any means."

Board and committee member David Amor, D-District 2, said the advisory committee would come before the board for creation "when the (legal) language is in place for it." Hawkinson said after the meeting that Nursing Home Committee Chairman Bob Bondi, R-District 2, would ask Knox County State's Attorney John Pepmeyer and Knox County Clerk Scott Erickson to craft the proper legal language needed to create the committee. (Bondi and board member Todd Shreves, D-District 5, were absent Wednesday.) Hawkinson anticipated the process would take a couple of months.

The board voted 13-0 to display the county budget and tax levy for fiscal year 2018-2019. The budget and levy will be displayed in Erickson's office and online before Nov. 1.

The budget lists revenue of $62,535,868 and expenses of $62,528,303. The tax rate was $1.32 per $100 equalized assessed valuation and the actual levy was $10,837,257.

Knox County Treasurer Robin Davis said expenses countywide decreased by $1,636,099 for FY 2018-2019. She attributed the decrease to the departments using their reserves more this year and the fact that the pension rate is also expected to decrease from $8.79 to $6.38.

The board also agreed to increase the salary of Public Defender David Hansen, per a state requirement. The state required county treasurers to raise the salaries of public defenders by 2.2 percent to match cost of living increases for state's attorneys.

Hawkinson said during the meeting that as of Nov. 30, 2017, Pepmeyer made $166,507.90 and Hansen made $149,856.98.

"If I could vote 'no' I'd vote 'no,' but a state law is a state law," Hawkinson said.

That was not the only measure the board passed to comply with another government's requirement. The board passed a memorandum for the county's AFSCME unions to comply with the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. The memorandum reinforced that employees who do not join the union as full members have the right to opt out of paying union dues.

Davidson didn't know if any county AFSCME members had asked to opt out of paying dues yet, but she said she didn't think so.

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