MONTICELLO, NY — Staffing levels at the Sullivan County Adult Care Center (ACC) and the quality of some of the new hires at the facility were among the topics touched on at a wide-ranging discussion of the facility at a meeting of the Health and Family Services Committee at the government center on August 13.

The discussion came after Sandy Shaddock, president and business agent for Teamsters Local 445, raised several concerns about the facility in July.

As part of an overview of actions progress at the facility, Shennoy Wellington, the ACC administrator, said that while the memory care unit was being created and other renovations were underway, parts of the facility had been closed and residency had dropped to about 67% of capacity. But now, with the building fully operational again, residency was up to about 93% of capacity.

In the most blunt assessment of the staffing issue, Doug Bowman, shop steward at ACC, said directly to the legislature, “You cut, you cut, you cut, through attrition; now the building is coming back up to par with residents there, you need to replace some of those positions. If you replace some of those positions, it will cut down on the burnout [from] people working so much overtime and wanting to call out.”

Bowman said the quality of some of the new hires also needed to be addressed. While he conceded there had been positive change under Wellington’s tenure, which has been in place for not quite a year, he also said, “You need to look at the quality of people you’re hiring at the ACC. Welfare-to-work is a good thing, I guess, I don’t know. But I know that the people that you’re hiring, they don’t want to work. They want to work a few hours and receive services because they’re legal and they can do [that] as long as they work a few hours.

“You have to look at [the fact] that you pick these people up, they don’t want to do anything, and you decide to send them to school and they become CNAs [certified nursing assistants]. And then you say OK, go work at the Sullivan County Adult Care Center, knowing that they don’t want to work. The people who are long-term employees at the ACC are dedicated people... who care about the residents.” But he said, “those people are miserable because of something that you did.” Bowman said replacing positions that were previously eliminated through attrition could not be done by the union or the ACC administration, but only through the legislature.

Shaddock said low salaries were also a concern. She said, “Twenty-four people have been hired into nursing since January. That and the call-outs are an indication that there is a bigger problem, a retention problem. We have a problem because the salaries are so low, and Shennoy [Wellington] and the union can’t fix that, that has to be fixed here in this room.”

Wellington responded to those comments in part by saying the people who are “burned out” aren’t usually the ones calling out sick. As to the quality of some of the hires, she said, “Yes, I do see an issue with the quality of people that the county does produce. However, I cannot help it if they’re a product of their environment, and that’s who we have.”

At one point legislator Kathy LaBuda asked Wellington, “Are you understaffed right now?”

Wellington answered, “The positions are filled right now.”

Bowman said that he referred to the current allotted positions, not the positions eliminated by attrition before Wellington arrived at the facility.

The conversation took place after legislators Kitty Vetter, Cindy Gieger and Cora Ewards praised Wellington and the measures she has taken to address the various concerns raised by Shaddock and the union.

Also at the meeting, three members of the ACC Family Council, a group that advocates for residents at the facility, gave brief statements of the value of the county-owned nursing home, and related personal stories about how the facilities had been beneficial to their relatives.