Cumberland County to sell its nursing home; new owner says it wants to ‘save Claremont’

• Steve Marroni/PennLive
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  Reporter covering court in Cumberland and York counties, as well as Cumberland County government. Contact me at 717-255-8266 or smarroni@pennlive.com. Follow me on Twitter @SteveMarroni.

(Carlisle) — Cumberland County has owned a nursing home for nearly 200 years, but on Wednesday, the commissioners started a process that will transfer it into the hands of a private company.

While a citizens’ group rose up in opposition to the sale, and one of the three county commissioners voted against it, the agreements secured today make Allaire Health Services the new owner of the Claremont Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Middlesex Township, outside of Carlisle.

“Change is hard, but we view this as a pathway to an even brighter future,” Allaire chief strategy officer Kyle Kramer said at Wednesday’s county commissioners’ meeting. And he said it can be a brighter future for the facility under Allaire’s ownership. “This is our business. This is what we do.”

While it is a challenging time in the nursing-home industry, Kramer said Allaire is experienced in this business, it has purchased county nursing homes before, and in those sales, it has a retention rate of about 95 percent of employees.

“We are excited to be a part of this community, and we will do our best to earn the respect and trust of the citizens of this community,” he added.

But with the Citizens Saving Claremont group that fought for months to keep the home in county hands, Kramer has his work cut out for him.

Claremont was once known as “the poor house,” a place where some of the county’s senior citizens could be taken care of in their waning years.

While it has grown beyond those days into full-fledged, skilled-nursing facility, Claremont still offers about 80 percent “Medicaid beds” – an industry term for space for low-income senior citizens due to their reliance on the Medicaid program.

Part of the agreement is that it will retain a similar rate of Medicaid beds, county officials previously said.

The county commissioners say a sale has been a possibility for quite some time. Medicaid rates have been flat since 2014, and Claremont had been losing money for about a decade, dwindling the reserve funds it had built up. The financial situation there has gotten to the point of wiping out the home’s reserves with a projected $2.6 million shortfall for 2021, county officials say. That money has to come from somewhere — taxpayer dollars.

Members of the Citizens Saving Claremont group argue the county can use a portion of the federal American Rescue Plan funds to stabilize Claremont to give officials a little time to make financial and operational changes that would make the home profitable and allow it to stay in county hands with county oversight.

The Claremont property was appraised at $21 million. The county and Allaire reached a $22.3 million sales agreement for the 3.7-acre property and all of the buildings that are part of the Claremont facility.

The sale will happen in several stages, county officials say, starting with Allaire coming in on a consulting basis as the company prepares to take full ownership of the home. By this fall, county officials expect to complete the transfer.

The home was sold by a 2-1 vote. Commissioner Jean Foschi opposed the sale.

“I am elected to serve the people of Cumberland County, and those people have spoken on this issue,” she said. “We have been asked to consider ways to preserve Claremont as a county home.”

Requests for looking at alternatives to a sale have come from groups like the Citizens Saving Claremont, as well as individual citizens, health-care professionals and the governing bodies of several municipalities, she said.

Foschi acknowledged Claremont’s finances are a challenge, but she said the commissioners should explore all options to turn it around and not just sell it.

Members of the Citizens Saving Claremont group spoke, too, expressing their disappointment.

“I continue to believe that selling Claremont is not in the best interest of the citizens of Cumberland County, both now and in the future, to a private operator,” Morgan Plant, of Carlisle, told the commissioners. “That is no reflection on Allaire, it is a reflection on national data that suggests when you make the shift from a county home or a non-profit home to a private home that there is an effect on quality of care and also an effect on resources available for staff.”

Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said that Claremont has been in a financially difficult position for years, and when it came to selling the nursing home, “it was always a question of ‘when?’”

He said the county and Allaire are committed to a smooth transition for residents and employees at Claremont. The county instituted retention bonuses and continues to fund training opportunities for talent in order to compete for quality workers during a difficult time for nursing homes, he said.

Commissioner Vince DiFilippo added, “We’re fortunate in Cumberland County to have many skilled nursing facilities to take care of the sick and elderly. Claremont will remain one of those facilities, and in my opinion, it will become an even better facility under the ownership and direction of Allaire Health Services.”

He said the residents will stay, if they choose, and the current employees will be offered jobs with Allaire.

“We view this as an opportunity,” Kramer, of Allaire, said about the purchase. “We view this as a pathway to a brighter future for an already-strong building.”

He said each nursing home the company has purchased has improved in its quality.

“Our goals are to take what is already an existing, strong facility and make it even better,” Kramer said. “We do that by investing in the facility, not just its façade, but in the team that is there.”

Staff development is a big focus, providing staff members with an opportunity to grow and progress in their career paths, including tuition-reimbursement programs.

Kramer acknowledged the local opposition to the sale, but he said Allaire’s goals are much the aligned as theirs – to save Claremont.

“We not only want to save Claremont, we want to invest in it and elevate its future, increase its opportunity, enhance its reputation and grow its value to all of the individuals who live within Cumberland County,” he said.

This story originally appeared on pennlive.com.