Rural Wisconsin county contemplates selling county-owned nursing home

Elbridge Curtis is 94 and has lived at Pine Crest Nursing Home in Merrill since 2019 when he moved there with his wife, who needed memory care. His wife Marlene died at Pine Crest the following year, but Curtis stayed on.

Now, Curtis says he’s learning to walk again, and he planned to spend the rest of his life at Pine Crest.

“I don’t have a home, I don’t have a car, I don’t have anything else that I need,” he said. “Pine Crest gives me a chance to end my golden years in care and comfort.”

But he’s worried that might not be possible because Lincoln County officials are considering selling the county-owned, and money-losing, nursing home to a private entity.

“To those people who are deliberating (or) contemplating Pine Crest, it is something that we need,” Curtis said. “I need it. A lot of people worse than I — physically and mentally — need Pine Crest. Our community, our county, and, actually, our state can’t get along without something like this.”

He’s one of roughly two dozen locals who presented a petition with more than 600 signatures to Lincoln County officials Monday morning, protesting the possible sale of the nursing home. The petition drive was a response to the county’s request for bids from brokers to determine if there’s a market for Pine Crest.

The county has owned Pine Crest since the 1950s, and it is home to about 85 residents. But officials say it has been losing money for years. Now, the county is considering either selling the nursing home or holding a referendum to increase local funding for the facility.

A March report from a county committee estimated the facility had a $1.2 million deficit last year, and requires an additional $11 million in maintenance. Since 2014, the facility has lost roughly $9 million, according to a May 12 letter to Pine Crest residents that informed them of the possible sale or referendum.

Local organizers met at the Lincoln County Service Center to let officials know they want Pine Crest to remain county-owned. Organizer Renea Frederick said she wants the County Board to explore alternatives outlined in the March report, and to look for “out of the box strategies” being used in other communities with government-owned nursing homes.

“We also ask that the citizens of Lincoln County be part of this process,” she said. “Our goal is to find financial solutions that will enable Pine Crest to continue to serve our residents now and into the future.”

Lincoln County opened three bids from brokers for the facility Monday. County Board chair Don Friske said the county is looking for a broker to learn whether there’s a market for the facility, and what selling the nursing home would entail.

“We have to figure out where it is that we go from here,” Friske said. “The only way that we can really get a good answer for the County Board on this option was to look at a broker (and) say, ‘What does it cost us to do that? And then what do you think the value of it is? And is there a market?’”

Gary Olsen is the executive director of North Central Health Care, the organization hired by the county to manage Pine Crest since 2020. He said the facility would have had a balanced budget last year — if not for a more than $1 million decrease in revenues from the state compared to previous years.

“It was discouraging because we would have had a decent year,” Olsen said. “We didn’t, and now we’re struggling coming into this year because we don’t have those funds either for this year.”

County officials sent a letter to Gov. Tony Evers in March asking the state to make the county whole for its losses from reduced state funding in 2022 and 2023.

Friske said the county hasn’t come to a final decision about whether to sell. He said Lincoln County is still considering a possible referendum to ask taxpayers to help boost funding through increased property taxes. But Friske said he fears that could be a hard sell to voters.

“It’s tough when you’re talking about the kind of money that we’re talking about,” he said. “(Property taxes on) the average home would probably go up $100 (to) $110.”

County Board Supervisor Elizabeth McCrank spoke at Monday’s gathering. She said the process being used to evaluate Pine Crest’s future is “deeply flawed,” and believes the issue should go to a referendum.

“Selling Pine Crest in any fashion whatsoever is turning our backs on the people who have invested in our community and paid their taxes — sometimes for decades — to support public schools, the roads, law enforcement and all other public goods,” she said. “They did it all the while believing that this would be a great place for them to live out their lives.”

St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ Rev. Michael Southcombe said a majority of Pine Crest’s residents are on Medicaid, and he fears a private entity purchasing the nursing home would reduce the number of Medicaid beds available.

“To believe that someone will buy Pine Crest, either a nonprofit or a for-profit entity, and keep the same level of service — with 70 to 80 percent of the residents on Medicaid — is magical thinking,” he said. “We need a County Board that will stand up and abide by the moral contract we have with the most vulnerable elderly residents of Merrill.”

Whether the county goes to a referendum or sells Pine Crest, Friske said the goal is to keep the facility operating as a skilled nursing home.

“We’re hoping that we don’t ever get to the point where we have no options left,” he said. “This county board felt like addressing those options and looking at the options while we still had the financial ability to continue to operate it.”