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Town hears repeated appeals as Island Nursing Home seeks bridge funding and housing support
Summary
Representatives of the Island Nursing Home told the Stonington Selectmen the facility faces a structural budget gap and asked towns for financial and housing support; selectmen pressed for clearer budgets and noted any town funding would require a town meeting petition. The matter recurred across multiple meetings in 2022.
Skip Greenlaw and Leon Weed, representing the Island Nursing Home (INH), told the Selectmen the facility faces a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar shortfall and asked the towns for emergency funding to restart the facility as residential-care-only.
At a November meeting, Greenlaw said the INH needed "$100,000 from the towns" to reopen as residential care, and described a broader deficit the board estimated at roughly $500,000. Selectmen and Town Manager (TM) Billings pressed for clarification on whether the shortfall reflected pre-pandemic costs or had been adjusted for recent inflation and staffing pressures. Billings said any town contribution would require a petition to place the request on a town meeting warrant.
INH board members repeated staffing and housing shortages as drivers of financial distress in later sessions. At an August meeting, INH representatives said the facility still faced closure risks tied to staffing and a lack of local housing for employees, and that beds had not been sold; one INH board member said the organization would need substantially larger sums (described to the board as up to $700,000) to retain bed capacity. Selectmen asked for audited financials and warned that recurring subsidies would need explicit voter approval.
Town officials emphasized process limits and legal constraints. TM Billings told the board she had not received complete, updated INH budget documents and noted the legal requirement that any municipal appropriation of this type must be placed before voters. Several Selectmen said they were open to exploring housing solutions and regional cooperation but declined to commit town funds without clearer financial evidence and a formal warrant article.
The Selectmen did not approve any direct funding during the sessions recorded; rather, INH leaders were invited to provide detailed, current financial statements and, if warranted, seek placement of a funding article on a future town meeting warrant. The Selectmen also discussed housing strategies as part of larger community planning that could indirectly support staffing for long-term care providers.
The matter remains unresolved and was repeatedly listed for follow-up in subsequent Selectmen agendas.
