Officials are clashing over whether the Geriatric Authority's unpaid bills to the city total $2.84 million or $877,000.
Jeanne Forget talks about the Holyoke Geriatric Authority during an interview about how families are being left in the middle as money and politic are fueling a dispute over the Geriatric Authority.HOLYOKE – Money and politics are fueling an increasingly sharp dispute over the future of the Holyoke Geriatric Authority.
Some city councilors are so fed up with the authority’s unpaid bills to the city – there’s a dispute whether the total is $2.84 million or $877,000 – that they want to discuss more than just how to remove members of the authority’s board of directors.
Councilors are exploring whether to close the 80-bed facility at 45 Lower Westfield Road, a lengthy process that would require state approval. The authority also provides day-care services to another 80 senior citizens.
Meanwhile, residents and employees of the authority said they feel caught in the middle and worry about their future.
“I really can’t imagine the city of Holyoke closing it,” said resident Jeanne R. Forget, 69, a former French teacher.
Resident Mary Glavas, 93, said she hopes she can stay at a facility she praises for being so clean.
“I mean it. You can see them washing the floor all day long,” said Glavas, who used to be a school lunch worker.
Authority officials have told employees the facility isn’t closing, but some wonder what to believe.
“The effect is that it’s very worrisome to a lot of people. This is their job,” said Veronica M. Szpila, a licensed practical nurse.
Authority directors said some councilors essentially are scheming to put elderly residents on the street and are misrepresenting financial problems.
They said the facility’s unpaid bills to city agencies amount to $877,000, not the $2.84 million contended by Mayor Elaine A. Pluta, Treasurer Jon D. Lumbra and city councilors.
In a recent meeting at The Republican, authority board members and Executive Director Sheryl Y. Quinn said they disagreed with city officials about a 2007 land deal, a key part of the dispute.
The city bought 9.5 acres of authority property on Lower Westfield Road for $1.2 million. Contrary to city officials’ assertions, authority officials said there was never an understanding either that the $1.2 million be repaid to the city or that the authority had to buy back the 9.5 acres.
The property is vacant, as city officials said they never intended to develop it, having made the purchase to help the authority.
Authority officials were particularly upset by Ward 1 Councilor Donald R. Welch’s order to begin the process of shutting down the facility. Welch said it was an extraordinary step prompted by extraordinary frustration with the authority’s failure to discuss a plan to repay the bills.
“What are your plans to pay back the debt?” Welch asked.
The council Finance Committee will discuss the order May 18.
“It just baffles me,” said Russell J. McNiff, authority director of human resources.
The issue has divided at least one family.
“The city councilor who filed the order is my first cousin, and I am diametrically opposed,” said William F. Welch. “His aunt, my mother, was a resident here until she died March 6.”
The late Elizabeth C. “Betty” Welch, 89, attended the daycare program before becoming a resident, William Welch said. He called the program “a godsend.”
Closing the authority would require a series of city and state steps that could take months or longer, city attorney Adam Pudelko said.
The council and mayor would have to ask the state Legislature to repeal the 1971 act that established the authority. If approved, a receiver would be appointed to manage the authority while state agencies, including the attorney general’s office and Department of Public Health, review what would happen next, he said.
The authority is a quasi-official municipal agency. The council appoints three members of the board of directors, the mayor appoints three and those six then vote on a seventh member.
The authority cares for low- and middle-income elderly who might be ineligible for another nursing home, officials said.
“Who will care for these 160 individuals if not the Geriatric Authority?” officials said in a statement to The Republican.
Authority officials cite competition from other nursing homes, the recession and insufficient federal reimbursements for the financial problems.
Authority board member Steven J. Kravetz, who was elected by the other board members, said city councilors have been “intellectually dishonest” about funding issues.
“Frankly, I think the city needs to start prioritizing what they believe in,” Kravetz said.
Referring to a city plan to borrow $5.5 million for a $14.5 million renovation and addition to the Holyoke Public Library, Kravetz said, “Frankly, nobody visits libraries anymore.”
In response, Stephen H. “Terry” Plum, president of the library board, of directors, said library usage is high in a poor community such as Holyoke.
“We have 100,000 visitors a year and climbing,” Plum said.
The city is receiving a state grant, using library board endowment money and raising additional funds for the project.
Kravetz and other authority officials also deride the $168 million high performance computing center being built downtown as “an employer of five people” and being “given a hero’s welcome by the city while those same leaders seek to shut us down.”
The computing center will employ about 25 people. A lineup of federal, state and city officials and business owners envisions the high-tech research hub spurring an economic boost by drawing new businesses here.
The authority, in comparison, has a payroll of $4 million for its 177 employees, officials said.
Kravetz also criticized city councilors for giving approvals “without asking questions” of overtime funds for the Police and Fire departments.
Actually, councilors usually grill department heads about overtime spending. Such questioning made City Council Chambers one of the least favorite places of former Police Chief Anthony R. Scott, who retired April 30, by his own admission. Kravetz retracted the comment.
Kravetz also was critical of the City Council for approving a “$3.8 million ... dog park.” But the only such facility being built is a fenced-in area for people to bring dogs to be included in a $3.1 million renovation of Community Field off Cherry Street and beside Interstate 91 North.
That project will include drainage improvements, two play areas for children, a water spray park, a walking path for senior citizens and an ice skating rink, officials said.
At the March 29 meeting of the authority board of directors, Kravetz criticized city officials for getting the authority’s unpaid-bills total wrong.
“It’s a dangerous thing wen somebody starst throwing numbers around and there’s no back up to it,” Kravetz said.
Finance Committee Chairman Todd A. McGee said of Kravetz’ criticisms, “Once again, they’re going to attack any other project happening in the city because their project is more important.”
Authority officials agree their facility owes $517,000 to the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department and $334,000 in pension contributions to the Retirement Board dating back to 2008. The authority is current on pension payments made from employee payroll deductions, Lumbra said.
“Our plan is to pay it off. I can’t say how quickly,” Quinn said.
Another $26,000 and perhaps more relates to in-lieu-of-tax payments to the city from the authority, a payment also in dispute.
Regarding the property purchase, Ward 2 City Councilor Diosdado Lopez said the deal was intended to help the authority, “as a loan, with the understanding, down the road, we would get the money back.”
Council President Joseph M. McGiverin said the city bought the property with the understanding the authority would build a smaller, more efficient facility and then sell the existing site and repay the city. In the interim, the economy plunged into recession and the project was untenable, he said.
“But the city is supposed to get the $1.2 million back,” McGiverin said.
Authority officials said in the statement to The Republican that the idea of the authority buying back the land or otherwise refunding the $1.2 million is “a transaction that has never been discussed with the Geriatric Authority.”
But the purchase and sale agreement between the authority and the city suggests otherwise. The Nov. 16, 2006 agreement states in part: “In order to proceed with the planning of the new facility, it is imperative that the authority be able to reacquire the premises so it could locate its new facility on the new facility parcel and sell the developable property to provide financing.”
The deed granted the authority a right-of-first-refusal to buy the property if the city planned to sell it. That right expired in September.
Authority officials also disagree that the authority owes the city $734,100 dating back to 2007 in health and life insurance payments for retired authority employees.
“We have no intention of paying this bill,” said board chairman Joseph T. O’Neill, adding of Lumbra, “All of a sudden the treasurer on his own decided to bill us for that.”
In fact, Lumbra obtained advice from city solicitor Lisa A. Ball, who said state law requires that the authority reimburse the city for such costs.
Holyoke Geriatric Authority Documents Related to Purchase and Sale
Also upsetting to authority officials is Lopez’ request for a legal opinion on how the council can remove sitting members of the geriatric authority board.
“I think every councilor has a right to ask questions,” Lopez said.
Kravetz called Lopez’ step “incredibly insulting.”
Pluta said authority officials must devise a debt-payment plan, and soon, because the alternative is to put that burden on taxpayers, which would be “unacceptable.”
Quinn said the authority is trying to adapt. One plan is to establish a unit for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, she said. The board also is discussing leasing an authority area known as Building B.
The dispute is upsetting to the facility’s nurses, dieticians, housekeepers, laundry attendants and other employees, a union official said.
“They’re very frustrated and very unsure about their future,” said Richard Brown, of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459.