By:Nick Buglione
The Nassau Health Care Corporation is hoping to cut its deficit in half in the coming fiscal year, a goal that will be accomplished largely through labor concessions and what are likely to be more staff layoffs.
In a Nov. 22 meeting with the corporation-s board of directors, Chief Financial Officer Gary Bie said that the corporation-s losses in 2004 will total between $13 million and $15 million.
Under the recently disclosed 2005 budget, which the attending board members approved unanimously following the meeting, the corporation is aiming to lose just $6.5 million. If it is able to accomplish that, it would be the smallest loss the corporation has posted since its creation in 1999.
It-s management-s intent to reduce the deficit by 50 percent, Bie said, though he acknowledged that much of the corporation-s projected savings hinge on attaining labor concessions from the union and, most likely, another round of layoffs.
The corporation, which runs the Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, the A. Holly Patterson nursing home in Uniondale and seven community clinics, has been tight-lipped about labor negotiations, and has not announced any layoffs.
Representing some 3,000 Nassau Health Care Corporation employees, the Civil Service Employees Association has already expressed concerns about the 2005 budget. We are having the budget analyzed, said Jane D-Amico, president of CSEA Nassau Local 830, adding that the union has asked corporation officials about potential layoffs but hasn-t received a straight answer. They-re talking, in general, union contract improvements. They would not specifically answer the question on layoffs.
The corporation has been losing millions of dollars each year since its creation, and has laid off approximately 700 workers over the last two years in an effort to close its gaping deficit.
D-Amico says that the union, which has been negotiating a new contract with the corporation for two years, is willing to contribute to the stabilization of the institution and has offered contract modifications in lieu of layoffs. Somebody has to take a first step in putting sutures in the wound, and it-s a gaping wound, she said. We feel we-ve provided that first step. We-ve provided the thread; now all they have to do is make the stitch.
The union maintains that more layoffs will only lead to a further decline in patients and greater losses for the corporation. A county-commissioned report released at the beginning of the year detailed, however, that the NHCC is overstaffed when compared with other area health-care systems, and recommended more layoffs to improve its financial situation.
Offering many other solutions to the corporation's fiscal woes, that report has since been adopted by the board of directors as the blueprint for getting the corporation out of the red.
After reviewing its 2005 budget, Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman said the corporation appears to be on the road to recovery. They seem to be meeting their long-term goal of achieving stability, Weitzman said. It clearly is more in line with what we expected.
NHCC President and CEO Daniel Kane recently expressed optimism in a published report that the corporation might be able to break even by 2005, though Weitzman said that-s unrealistic.
The corporation was set to run out of money by the end of the year, until the county worked out a $60 million bailout plan. That plan gave the corporation enough breathing room to stay in operation through 2005, so it can continue to work on long-term solutions to its financial problems.
The sale of the A. Holly Patterson nursing home in Uniondale and the construction of a replacement facility at NUMC is one of those solutions. The sale of the property could generate $70 million in revenue, while reducing the number of beds in the nursing home would provide further savings.
The NHCC's survival is of great concern to the county. If it were to go under, the county would ultimately be responsible for the debt service payments on the $256 million in bonds issued to finance its creation. That would mean devastating tax increases and service cutbacks.
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