Kathy, the administrator for the LaSalle County Nursing Home, presented the facility’s FY26 budget to the finance committee on Sept. 30 and outlined urgent repair needs, staffing shortages and a projected operating deficit for next year.

The packet shows the nursing home’s cash-on-hand at roughly $2.5 million. The FY26 draft budget as presented includes a deficit that, if the full set of proposed capital and site projects were authorized, would reduce cash toward roughly $826,000 by the end of FY26. Kathy and finance staff identified a subset of necessary projects that they said should be prioritized for FY26: water tower cleaning and painting, resident-room repairs, sidewalk repair, and rewiring the laundry room. Those four projects plus some additional items were estimated at roughly $1.51 million in the presentation; staff proposed budgeting a smaller amount (for example, $175,000 was discussed as a possible allowable FY26 site-improvement appropriation) so the nursing home would not exhaust its cash balance.

Kathy told the committee the facility is short approximately 18 positions across nursing, housekeeping, laundry and activities (she cited "7 open CNAs and 5 open nurses" specifically), and that the home has relied on contract staffing and PRN employees to keep operations running. She described contract staffing — primarily agencies charging a substantially higher hourly rate — as a major driver of increased expense. The packet shows an "extra help"/contractual services budget line already significantly higher this year and projected higher for FY26.

Administrators also asked to create or expand a separate "laundry/incontinence" expense line to track the cost of briefs and related supplies; Kathy said briefs run approximately $1,200 per month at current census. The committee agreed to adjust housekeeping and incontinence line amounts during the meeting (moving housekeeping supplies lower and allocating a new incontinence/laundry line). Finance staff noted payroll lines in the nursing-home budget are currently inflated by budgeting for fully staffed positions even though many remain open; staff suggested reconciling payroll assumptions with realistic expected fillings to narrow the projected deficit.

Committee members asked whether property-maintenance needs could be handled by county property services; staff said the nursing home is typically funded through its own levy and that many capital items are custom to the facility but that coordination with county property could be explored. Committee members did not finalize capital authorizations at the Sept. 30 meeting and asked nursing-home and finance staff to return with refined payroll and capital plans.