While much of Illinois watched millionaires run for elected office, political primary concerns in Livingston County centered on something more fundamental and rooted here: Would senior citizens living in the 122-bed county residential facility lose their home?
The answer is no, thanks to a homegrown political movement that pulled off a landslide victory for a tax hike.
“As far as I’m concerned,” said Livingston County Board Chairwoman Jeanne Rapp, “this is a clear indication residents want us to keep taking care of our seniors and stay in the nursing home business.”
Livingston has operated a nursing home for county residents since 1859. The county currently spends a little under $1 million on the Livingston Manor facility, which has a $4 million overall budget. The rest is made up through residents’ ability to pay, but close to 70 percent of them are on Medicaid, Medicare and other forms of full, public aid.
But operating expenses have been growing, state assistance has been shrinking and a 2003 study by a county advisory committee outlined four scenarios for the county to consider regarding care for its elderly citizens: Hire a private management firm to run Livingston Manor; build a new, modern facility; sell the operation; or close it.
“We’ve all been a little worried about what’s going to happen to us,” said wheelchair-bound Roger Russell, 67, a two-year resident of Livingston Manor. “I suppose I could go to the veterans’ home in Quincy or Anna, but I wouldn’t know a person.”
And that’s the crux of the matter, as far as an activist group called the Friends of Livingston Manor Committee was concerned.
“We’ve got to take care of our old people,” said local restaurant owner Jimmy Letsos, one of Pontiac’s more forceful proponents of saving the nursing home. “If they serve their purpose, do we just toss them away? I’m from Greece, where the Spartans threw them off the mountain. Is that next?”
To see where things might be headed, Livingston Manor’s supporters had to look no further than adjacent Ford County, where the cash-strapped county nursing home was privatized a few years ago and leased to an outside health care firm.
Private facilities do accept residents with little or no means, but they can limit the number of such admissions in favor of those more able to pay for their care. That means a lifelong county resident could end up living in a nursing home among strangers, miles away.
To bolster the Livingston Manor budget, the committee of its friends managed to put a referendum on the March 16 ballot asking county residents for a special 0.1 percent levy for the publicly run home.
At that rate, the levy could be expected to add about $500,000 per year to meet growing operating expenses and cover shortfalls from state cuts, according to County Board member Arnold Natzke.
For taxpayers this adds up to about an extra $34 annually for a $100,000 home, or 22 cents per acre of farmland.
“In other words, about what it costs for a carton of cigarettes,” said Barb Sullivan, co-chair of The Friends of Livingston Manor Committee.
Non-stop effort
For Sullivan and her committee of co-chairwomen Mary Jo Parsons, Jean McCrain, Sheila Simons and Sue Gero, all of whom work at the manor but who took personal time to campaign, it has been a non-stop effort since the holidays to get the word out and win support.
They’ve spoken at informational forums organized by Natzke and the County Board’s finance committee, organized telephone canvassing, gone to church meetings, attended luncheons and written letters.
At least once a week, the committee convened in Dad’s Frozen Custard restaurant on Pontiac’s courthouse square to plot strategy. “I took the last weekend off,” confessed Sullivan, “because my daughter was coming to visit.”
She estimated their grass-roots effort cost about $2,000, mostly for advertising and posters, and was raised through donations. Much of the money came from relatives of manor residents, some of whom also volunteered time. There also were plenty of bake sales: “I think I’ve put on a few pounds,” Parsons said ruefully.
But come primary night, it didn’t matter. The final count was 5,916-2,983 in favor of the proposition. At the same time, voters passed by 6,360-2,598 a second, non-binding question of whether they favored building a new county nursing home someday.
“I told everyone this was an election in which you could actually vote twice for the same thing, just like Chicago,” Sullivan joked.
The passage of the questions officially pulls a security blanket over Livingston Manor, alleviating more than a few fears among nervous residents, some of whom have lived there more than 20 years.
It also appears to make a statement.
“There are some counties that just like the idea they can take care of their residents with the care that they need,” said Maria Schmidt, an official with the Illinois Health Care Association. “It’s a matter of: I’m here, and the county is going to take care of you because that’s the way it should be.”
Of Illinois’ 102 counties, only 30 still operate county-run nursing homes, public facilities open to any resident with or without a dime, according to John Ryan, executive director of the County Nursing Home Association of Illinois.
He has seen seven such homes close during the last 15 years, he said, as compliance with stricter federal and state guidelines made them too costly in rural areas facing a steady drain of resources.
So Livingston County was proposing to make a stand. Because it would require a tax hike, passage wasn’t a sure thing, Pontiac Mayor Mike Ingles said, though there was no organized opposition to the nursing home referendums.
Still, there were six other revenue requests being made throughout the county on issues such as schools and cemeteries in the primary.
“No one I know wants their taxes to increase in these times,” Ingles said. “There are always people who’ll vote that way no matter what the issue.”
Though it was never part of the Save Livingston Manor literature, one whisper campaign may have been helpful.
The county is in the middle of a $20 million project to construct a new jail because the current one isn’t up to state code. Money for the new jail comes from revenue generated by a giant landfill operated by American Disposal Services Inc. Surely, some county residents reasoned, such an income stream could be tapped for a nursing home too.
Faith in the lucrative landfill may have been strong enough to buoy the non-binding nod toward building a new nursing home someday. But for the present, county residents voted nearly 2-to-1 to keep Livingston Manor going, just the way it is.
“We’re getting a new jail, but doesn’t it make more sense for the people who’ve worked all their lives and been productive to have a nice place to live?” asked Judy Ehlers, whose 94-year-old mother-in-law, Margaret, is a manor resident. “The jailbirds don’t need luxury. They chose to do wrong, but the people in the manor didn’t do anything but grow old. They’ve been paying taxes and been productive all their lives.”
Voting on the premises
The epicenter for the Livingston Manor referendums was the polling place for Eppards Point Township — the nursing home itself. On primary day starting at 6 a.m., there was a steady stream of wheelchairs and walkers making their way into the room where the voting booths were located.
“This is a nice place to live and I sure wouldn’t want to leave if I had to,” said Carol Hillyer, who moved into the manor when she was no longer able to take care of herself living alone in her Pontiac home. “I think people here don’t know all the details, but they know it’s important to go vote.”
And they certainly did go vote. The Eppards Point Township turnout was a full 10 percent higher than for the county as a whole — and the two referendums passed by 5-to-1 margins in Eppards Point, compared with 2-to-1 for Livingston County.
Wednesday morning, Livingston Manor had a party scheduled, complete with cake and balloons, though an outsider might have mistaken it for St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
The nursing home’s residents, staff and friends know better. “It’s a victory party,” Parsons said. “We have to settle down and get back to business, but there are a lot of smiles around here.”
