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Facility’s workers worried

Monroe Care Center employees concerned about looming future

T-L Photo/CARRI GRAHAM Monroe County Care Center union representative Debra Chonko, left, and Stacie Showalter, county home employee, meet with commissioners to discuss the impeding sale of the center on Monday afternoon.

WOODSFIELD — With the impending sale of the Monroe County Care Center looming, employees of the facility are concerned with their future job security and benefits at the center.

Last week, Monroe County Board of Commissioners held an emergency session in which the board signed a change of operator notice. The 45-day notice had to be signed in order to finalize the intended sale of the facility to Bryan Casey, president of Alternative Living Solutions, for $500,000. The expected final date for the county to control center operations is set for Dec. 15, which means the intended first date of operations for the entering operator shall be Dec. 16, the notice states. The document is signed by Commissioners Carl Davis and Tim Price. Commissioner Mick Schumacher did not sign it and has abstained from voting on related matters since expressing early opposition to the plan.

Monroe County Care Center union representative Debra Chonko and care center employee Stacie Showalter met with Schumacher, Davis and Price to discuss their concerns about the impending sale at Monday’s regularly scheduled commission meeting. Chonko gave commissioners a successorship agreement to have Casey sign prior to finalizing the deal in an effort to ease the employees’ minds once the sale is complete. Employees of the facility are worried about their future employment at the center, and the agreement would ensure they would keep their jobs through the sale.

The successorship agreement states that the employer shall make it a condition of the sale that the successor shall be bound by the terms of this agreement and that the transferee is obligated to continue to employ all bargaining unit employees in accordance with the terms of the agreement. Chonko then asked for a timeline for the sale of the facility. Price informed the union representative of the change of operator notice that was signed to meet the notification requirement for the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

“We are moving forward with the transfer and the sale,” Price said.

He said the commissioner are yet to sign a sale arrangement or an operations transfer agreement. However, the commissioners are continuing negotiations with Casey on the terms of the sale, Price said.

“I do feel we are very close and as soon as possibly next week,” he said.

Chonko said that all she wants is for the union contract to be upheld through the sale.

“Shouldn’t there be some concern about what will happen to them (care center employees)? … These guys work hard to work their 12-hour shifts, to make things smoother and now if a private entity comes in and says, ‘that’s it, you may stay, you may not stay,'” she said.

Showalter voiced her concerns to commissioners about her and her coworkers’ job security following the sale to Casey.

“We’re getting the runaround,” Showalter said. “It seems like you guys don’t care.”

Showalter said the care center’s employees are questioning whether commissioners care about their future employment.

“I would have to disagree with that,” Price said. “We’re at a negotiating process with the buyer, regarding the employees, who would be retained and who would not be; and again without going into all the details, the buyer has indicated to us the only ones he felt would not be offered continued employment would be those with two or more active disciplinary actions within the past.”

Davis said there have been numerous conversations with Casey concerning the employees and protecting their jobs.

“We need to move one way or the other. I don’t think it’s fair to just let the employees sit, they need some kind of decision,” Chonko said, adding that she believes employees have the right to know what will happen to their livelihoods following the sale.

Chonko said she would leave the successorship agreement with commissioners in hopes they will have Casey sign the document.

In other news, the commissioners’ office was a packed house of department representatives when the county’s future insurance provider was discussed. Officials with the Schwendeman Agency, the county’s agent of record, and members of the Monroe County Insurance Committee announced their recommendation. The recommended provider for the coming year is Medical Mutual; it was selected over the county’s current provider, The Health Plan. By switching providers, the county will save $175,637 in 2020.

Davis made a motion to accept the plan with Medical Mutual, and it was unanimously approved. The new provider will go into effect in January.

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