Bad debts to be written off before nursing home lease

Financial Management Committee chairman Joe Tillett said it's possible a few more bad debts might turn up as the county and CCMC work towards finalizing their lease agreement, which was approved in principle on June 30.

The county retained the nursing home when it sold Bedford County Medical Center in 2005, believing the nursing home to be profitable. But the facility was hit hard last year by a patient care incident which resulted in fines and a brief moratorium on new admissions. Commissioners made the decision to lease the facility.

Some commissioners see a lease as a first step towards eventually selling the facility outright, and Care Centers Management Consulting officials have pointed to other locations where a lease has given CCMC a chance to prove itself to local officials and led to an outright purchase of the nursing home.

But other commissioners say the county should hold on to the facility no matter what, fearing that another owner might decrease the level of care or make it harder for needy residents to gain admission.

In other action Tuesday night, the commission voted in principle to pay half the cost of replacing the HVAC unit at Argie Cooper Public Library. The county's share of the cost would be $6,729. Because the library is a non-profit organization, a special resolution will have to be drawn up approving the allocation. But Tuesday's vote expressing the commission's intent should be enough to allow the library to go ahead and spend the money.

Property owner Gary Throneberry, representing 128 residents of the Mullins Mill area, appeared before the commission to report that a dispute over a waste sludge tank had been resolved and the tank had been removed.