Highlights of the December 19, 2006 meeting
of the Tompkins County Legislature
Legislature Opposes Lakeside Nursing Home Closure; Urges Rejection of Berger Report
Citing harm to the county’s most frail citizens, a significant loss of local jobs, and severe impact on the county’s health care system, the Legislature, by unanimous vote (with Legislator Martha Robertson absent) called upon the state Legislature to reject the Berger Commission Plan to Stabilize and Strengthen New York’s Health Care System, which would close Ithaca’s Lakeside Nursing Home. 

Since it is not possible to remove individual facilities from the closure list, county legislators urge rejection of the Berger Commission Report in its entirety.  The report’s recommendations become law as of January 1, unless blocked by the State Legislature.  If Senate and Assembly do not reject the plan, county legislators call for implementation to be postponed, to permit a local team to work with the state to initiate changes to achieve the report’s objectives, with minimal disruption to the local health care system.  Legislators cite the Berger Commission’s failure to review a downsizing plan that Lakeside submitted, but which the state Department of Health has not acted upon for two years, which proposes reconfiguration strategies to address needs later identified in the Berger Commission Report. 

County Office for the Aging Director Lisa Holmes, who testified at an Assembly- sponsored hearing last week on the Berger report, told county lawmakers that she is concerned both by the unnecessary hardship that would be posed for more than 160 vulnerable residents currently housed at Lakeside and by the long-term shortage of 160 skilled nursing beds that would be created in Tompkins County.  The impact, legislators noted, would also spread to Cayuga Medical Center, which would no longer have Lakeside as a source of skilled nursing care for discharged patients. 

With the loss of 48 percent of the county’s nursing home beds and as many as 230 jobs, legislator Pam Mackesey predicted the closure would produce a “tremendously negative impact’ on Tompkins County.  “This is a terrible mistake,” she added, “and we need to push very hard to have it changed.”

The resolution will be sent to Governor George Pataki, Governor Elect Eliott Spitzer, Senators Seward, Nozzolio and Winner, Assemblyperson Lifton, the Chairs of Assembly and Senate Health Committees and the New York State Association of Counties. 

Contact:  Frank Proto, Chair, Health and Human Services Committee, 277-4875


Legislature Approves 2007 Salary Rates for Several Job Titles
By a vote of 9-5, authorized a 3 percent salary increase in 2007 for the job titles of County Attorney, Psychiatrist, and Medical Director (Mental Health), so-called “red- circled” positions whose salaries, because of market rates, had been previously authorized by the legislature at above the normal salary range.  The action sets the 2006 salary as the base salary for existing employees, dictates that the legislature set the salary for any new employees in those titles, and calls for a policy for evaluating, considering and establishing such salaries to be developed before departments begin preparing their proposed budgets next year.  The salary increase is consistent with pay increases approved for the county’s white collar and management and confidential employees.

Contact:  James Dennis, Chair, Personnel Committee, 387-4058


Carrie Lampman Honored as Tompkins County Distinguished Youth
The Legislature commended 14-year-old Carrie Lampman, of Freeville, as the December recipient of the Tompkins County Distinguished Youth Award. Recommended by Cooperative Extension Youth Educator Brenda Carpenter, Lampman was honored for work “beyond all expectations” to mentor a hearing impaired student in the 4-H “Kritter Kamp” program last June, mobilizing local resources and learning sign language so that she could fully involve the young girl in the educational program.  The award credits Carrie’s “generosity, self-motivation, acceptance of differences and responsible citizenship.”  The Distinguished Youth Award is co-sponsored by A&B Awards, Bangs Ambulance, Purity Ice Cream and the Cayuga Radio Group.
Contact:  Legislature Office, 274-5434

Among other actions, Legislators:
  • Approved a logo to market the county’s Workforce Diversity and Inclusion program and approved bylaws to establish the Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Committee as a formal advisory committee to the County Legislature.
  • Among a number of year-end resolutions, authorized County Finance Director David Squires to issue and to sell $8 million dollars in revenue anticipation notes, in anticipation of the receipt of state aid due to the county during the fiscal year.
  • Authorized the county to pass through $112,400 in state Transportation Department funding to Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, as a Master Mass Transportation Capital Project, reimbursing the state’s share of five projects included in two 2005 transit grants to TCAT; and authorized application for more than $1 million in federal and state rural transportation funding to support bus purchases and equipment for TCAT, Tioga Transport and the county.
  • Expressed their gratitude to Michelle Berry, who is ending two years as the County’s Poet Laureate as of year’s end.