DeKalb County considering new oversight group for ailing nursing home

SYCAMORE – It’s been two years since the DeKalb County Board dissolved a group meant to oversee its Rehabilitation and Nursing Center operations, and now amid a failed $8 million sale and a pending lawsuit, the board is considering bringing it back.

Creation of a new oversight board for the county-owned nursing center is expected to be part of discussion at Wednesday’s DeKalb County Board Committee of the Whole meeting, set for 7 p.m. at the DeKalb County Legislative Center’s Gathertorium, 200 N. Main St., Sycamore. The public will have chances to weigh in Wednesday and also at the full County Board meeting later this month if the consideration moves forward.

Mike Ostrom, whose mother lives in the nursing center’s demetia ward, recently said he supports the creation of such a group to help the County Board pay closer attention to the center’s operations. Ostrom voiced gratitude for the nursing center’s staff, who he said takes great care of his mother. He’s been vocal against selling the home to a private buyer, however.

“When they were trying to sell it, we got a lot of that were really pushing hard, hard, to sell this facility,” Ostrom said during the board’s November meeting. “Well we got it [a sale] where it’s stopped, and now you’re going to put together a board that’s going to, should be able to take over and kind of help run that and take any burdens off of yourselves.”

The $8.3 million sale contract with private buyers was terminated in October after the interested parties decided to back out of the deal. In the weeks since, DeKalb County has filed a lawsuit against the would-be buyers – Skokie-based Saba Healthcare and Evanston-based Illuminate HC – for reneging on the deal.

Officials also have wrestled with how to ensure the nursing center doesn’t teeter on insolvency.

In July 2022, the DeKalb County Board voted to sell the nursing center, 2600 N. Annie Glidden Road, DeKalb, to Illuminate HC for $8.3 million. At the time, officials said a sale was needed due to the county’s inability to keep the facility financially viable after years of alleged mismanagement, delinquent billing and falling resident numbers created $7 million worth of county debt.

The DeKalb County State’s Attorney’s office filed a lawsuit Nov. 9 on behalf of the county government seeking to recover more than $8.3 million from the would-be buyers of the center.

The county alleges the buyers unlawfully walked away from a contracted sale more than a year into the process. The lawsuit also alleges the buyers’ failure to see the sale through has caused “substantial financial losses” to the county, which alleges it was “defrauded and manipulated,” according to the lawsuit.

Circuit Court Chief Judge Bradley Waller is expected to hear arguments in the case at 9 a.m. Feb. 1 at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore.

[ DeKalb County files lawsuit against nursing home buyers for dropping out of $8.3M sale ]

In the meantime, county officials are thinking of ways to help keep the center’s operations accountable.

Discussion on the possible creation of an oversight committee has centered around an oversight board’s mission statement, who would be on it and how they would be appointed, and how many members might the body have.

“I think it’s a good idea,” County Administrator Brian Gregory said Monday. “There’s a lot of different thoughts to make up how it should be done, but I think everyone is coming at it and trying to create the best possible board. There’s some advantages to having folks that are really focused in on the DCRNC and then also for expediency. ... This will allow for a lot more regular routine type business to be expedited as well.”

The logic behind creating the oversight board, Gregory said, is that it would be able to operate and take action on administration needs with more reflectivity than the DeKalb County Board.

An operating board existed previously and was tasked with overseeing the nursing center for years. The County Board voted unanimously to dissolve the operating board in December 2021, however, one of many steps previously taken by officials to address the nursing center’s budget constraints.

To that end, Gregory suggested the DeKalb County Board evaluate the rehab center’s oversight board every six months, should it be created, and to ask themselves if it’s working.

DeKalb County Board Chair Suzanne Willis proposed putting the board’s creation up for an official vote. The earliest the DeKalb County Board could vote to create such a body would be Dec. 13, though it’s too early to tell whether a vote will be on the agenda.

Debate is ongoing regarding who could be on the oversight board.

Gregory said potential ideas include having some County Board members, some members of the public with specific expertise such as health care backgrounds, maybe a representative from the nursing center’s resident council who lives at the facility.

Ostrom argued, however, that he believes certain County Board members who voted to sell the facility shouldn’t be on the oversight board, if created.

“You’re going to have to put board members on there,” Ostrom said. “They should be voted in. They should not be allowed to be appointed. They should be voted in. So we don’t get two or three people on there that were really hell bent on [electing] to sell this place, when they should have stood back and let the people talk and listened to what they had to say.”