LaSalle County Nursing Home committee sends driver and staffing coordinator job descriptions to Salary and Labor after finance briefing

At a meeting of the LaSalle County Nursing Home and VAC Committee, members voted to forward two job descriptions — a part-time resident transportation driver and a staffing coordinator — to the county Salary and Labor committee for review after hearing the facility’s May financial report.

The nursing home’s presenter, Kathy Owens, identified the facility’s current daily room rates and census and reported an accounting adjustment that reduced available cash. “Current daily room rates are $242 daily per private room, $238 daily per expanded care, $230 daily per semi private,” Owens said, and she reported the facility’s census as 61. She told the committee that “in the month of April, our outstanding auditing company, Mac and Associates, made a transfer of $685,574 from our account as an adjustment,” an item that had been backdated in the audit records and which she said contributed to a drop in the home’s cash balance.

Those financial details framed discussion about staffing and operations. Owens said the current employee who performs both resident transportation and staff scheduling is retiring; “Her last date is the last Friday in July,” Owens said, and the facility wants to post replacement positions and allow time for training before that date. Committee members discussed whether to separate the duties into two roles, whether a commercial driver’s license (CDL) should be required or preferred for the transport role, and the union’s involvement in changing position structure. Owens said she had discussed the change with county human-resources staff and the union and that those parties had been consulted.

After initial procedural difficulty — an early motion to forward the part-time driver position failed for lack of a second — the committee later approved both requests. A motion to send the part-time resident transportation driver job description to Salary and Labor passed after a subsequent motion and second. The committee also approved forwarding the staffing coordinator job description to Salary and Labor; that motion was seconded and carried. Those actions send the job descriptions for classification, pay-band review and further discussion at Salary and Labor rather than authorizing immediate hires.

Committee members also received operational metrics and program details from Owens: admissions and discharges (three admissions, four discharges reported for the most recent month), a projection of five admits for May, a report of 15 falls involving 10 residents in May (five resulting in minor injuries), and restorative-program highlights such as a “walk to dine” activity with 24 participants. Owens described recent hiring activity in nursing: one full-time CNA hired for afternoon shift, one part-time CNA on maternity leave and a midnight full-time CNA resigning at month’s end. She said CNA competency audits and policy reviews are scheduled for completion in the coming weeks.

The committee approved routine motions to accept the nursing-home reports and to pay the facility’s bills. Members emphasized that forwarding the job descriptions to Salary and Labor is a procedural step and does not itself create new hires or change collective-bargaining coverage; final decisions on classification, pay and union status will be handled in the Salary and Labor process.

The committee adjourned after the Salary and Labor referrals were approved and routine business concluded.