CREST HAVEN – The Cape May County Board of County Commissioners has decided to turn over operation of the county-run Crest Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center to a private vendor.
The commissioners, by a 5-0 vote on Tuesday, Oct. 10, awarded a 10-year contract to Allaire Rehab & Nursing beginning on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. Allaire, which operates 15 facilities in four states, will pay the county $1.4 million per year, with a 2% escalation each year.
County Counsel Jeff Lindsay said 26 Crest Haven employees would be retained in other county departments, because they had the ability to “bump” someone with the same job title, due to seniority. Some 84 unionized workers will lose their county jobs but could be hired by Allaire.
A call to Allaire’s public relations department was not immediately returned, but the person answering the phone said the company has a retention rate of about 98% of the existing employees.
“The consensus is that [the decision] was a foregone conclusion,” said Mike Stover, president of AFSCME Local 3596, which represents about 600 county employees, including those at Crest Haven.
Stover made the comment before the meeting began, and AFSCME attorney David Beckett echoed his remarks after the meeting.
“We knew it was a done deal,” Beckett said.
Stover said that, seeing the writing on the wall, it was his goal to see that Crest Haven employees who were not given another position with the county would have employment.
The distance between what AFSCME and its members wanted and what the county wanted was apparent at the meeting. Beckett asked for more time to consider options for keeping Crest Haven a county-run facility. Having asked for a 12-month waiting period at a previous meeting, on Oct. 10 Beckett asked the commissioners to wait two weeks, until the next commissioners meeting.
The county and union could not agree to have a meeting regarding Crest Haven. The union wanted to discuss options to privatizing, allowing the 84 Crest Haven workers to remain county employees. The county wished to discuss transitioning the current employees to private employment. The union also wanted to talk about ideas for bringing more revenue into the operation of Crest Haven.
Lindsay said the county had considered all those options and rejected them as unworkable.
Lindsay provided a revenue and expense analysis, prepared by Ford-Scott & Associates of Ocean City, that showed the Crest Haven Nursing Home was losing an average of close to $6 million per year. The employees who showed up at county commissioner meetings over the last two months said the county had never told them about the losses, let alone addressed them.
Employees said the county was not billing properly, a sentiment echoed by the parent of a Crest Haven resident who said she had to continually call and ask for a bill. The nursing home also had only 80 residents in a facility that has 180 beds. The workers said the county could make up some of the losses by improving oversight and management of the facility.
Lindsay said analysis of the operation at Crest Haven found that the facility was overstaffed; Stover said there were “not enough people” at the nursing home.
Beckett said the county leadership seemed to proceed with what they wanted to do rather than take the employees’ position under consideration.
Bradley Read, who was accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Eli, spoke at a previous meeting, saying he could make more money working outside of government, but with a wife who has health problems he stayed with county employment for the benefits. Employees also, over the past two months, described the dedication of Crest Haven employees, who were called upon to work through the Covid pandemic.
Henry Lloyd Hayes told the commissioners that most people believed they were not listening to the workers and the public, and he found it hard to refute their beliefs. He disputed the county’s claims that the privatization of Crest Haven would be “good for the people,” referring to the property owners who subsidize the facility with their tax dollars.
Hayes said the commissioners were instead looking out for themselves, looking out for their checkbook, and looking out for friends, as opposed to looking out for the people in the room who were asking for their jobs to be saved.
“Make a decision for the people right in front of you,” Hayes said. “They have served with pride, but you’re saying, ‘Who gives a s—?’”
Of the five commissioners on the board, only two commented on the decision to privatize Crest Haven. Newly appointed Commissioner Robert Barr said the commissioners spent hours considering the decision and whether the employees would be OK.
Commissioner Andrew Bulakowski, who is described on the county website as “a Senior Council Representative with the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters,” began expressing his thanks to the AFSCME members who were losing their jobs, for all their dedication and hard work. At least half a dozen of them stood up and walked out as Bulakowski spoke.
The request for proposals from vendors, Lindsay had said, was to include their plans for providing jobs for the 84 who would be losing county employment.
Allaire has eight facilities in New Jersey, four in Pennsylvania, two in Florida and one in Vermont.
Contact the author, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
