New effort to save Suffolk nursing home

The Suffolk County Legislature voted Tuesday to authorize spending of up to $200,000 to launch a new process to find agencies that would be part of a public-private partnership to run the county's 264-bed nursing home.

Lawmakers approved the funding for the nursing home search process on a 15-1-1 vote. The lone "no" was Legis. Thomas Barraga (R-West Islip); Legis. Edward Romaine (R-Center Moriches) recused himself because his wife works at the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility.

Sponsor Legis. Kate M. Browning (WF-Shirley) called the new process for locating an operator "the best way to go" since closing the nursing home -- a move Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy favors -- would preclude the county from selling its valuable state nursing-home license.

But Levy spokesman Dan Aug said the administration is preparing its own request for proposals for a nursing home operator; the RFP will be out within two weeks and will not require extra funding, Aug said.

"We don't understand why the legislature would be throwing away $200,000 when [county] health center operators are crying out for that money," Aug said.

Private nursing-home operator Kenneth Rozenberg in late March pulled out of his $36-million deal to buy the facility in Yaphank. His attorney, Howard Fensterman, said Rozenberg has filed suit in State Supreme Court to recoup his $1.8-million deposit.

Aug said Rozenberg "has exhibited bad faith in refusing to follow through on the very deal he negotiated and therefore has forfeited his down payment."

While funding for the nursing home has been extended to July, Browning said a new operator-selection process will take at least six months.

Also Tuesday, the legislature heard from nearly a dozen speakers pleading for funds to keep the Elsie Owens Health Center in Coram from closing in July, and restoring cuts to the seven other Suffolk clinics.

Dr. Steven Strongwater, chief executive of the Stony Brook University Medical Center, which runs the Owens clinic for the county, warned that time is short because 18,000 letters must be sent out by week's end warning patients of the impending closing. Levy aides met Tuesday with Strongwater and also plan to meet Wednesday with officials of the Dolan Family Health Center in Greenlawn, which also is slated for significant cutbacks.

Levy, meanwhile, has asked local members of the State Senate and Assembly to an emergency meeting Friday as part of an effort to retrieve $20 million in state aid that the state "clawed back" after paying it to Suffolk. The loss of the state aid has caused the pending health center cutbacks.

The legislature also approved a new four-year contract with the 6,700-member Association of Municipal Employees. The union members will receive 2 percent raises this year and next, but no increases for 2009 or 2010. The pact will cost the county $22 million, but funding already has been budgeted.