County nurses to get pay boost

LACONIA — A plan to raise pay for workers at the Belknap County Nursing Home was approved by the County Commission Thursday.

The decision came on a vote of 3-0 following a discussion among commissioners and an update on the staffing situation from Nursing Home Director Shelley Richardson and County Administrator Debra Shackett.

"If we don't do something we're going to have to close (the home)," Commissioner Hunter Taylor said. "People of this county highly value the nursing home. It's a home of last resort for many."

Retaining and hiring people to work at the facility has become increasingly difficult because the pay is half to one-third what other area health-care facilities offer their employees.

“We still have a serious wage restriction that has cost us existing and potential employees,” Shackett said in a memorandum to the county commissioners. “... we must adapt or suffer the consequences.”

For months the facility has been running at two-thirds capacity because it has been unable to hire enough people to maintain the required staff-to-patient ratio needed to operate at its licensed capacity of 94 residents.

The nursing home has lost 38 staff members since January, according to Shackett.

Richardson told the commissioners she just received notice that an LNA is leaving to take a job at another facility that will pay her $7 more an hour than she has been making at the County Home.

Last week, seeing the real possibility that the home would have to close down another wing, the commission scheduled an emergency meeting to deal with the staffing crisis. But in recent days two developments have helped to lessen the pressure and that meeting was canceled.

The nursing home was able to hire four temporary registered nurses through a contract agency, and on Monday a federal judge blocked the federal COVID vaccine mandate for health-care workers which was scheduled to take effect this coming Sunday.

The temporary contract nurses will enable the home to continue caring for the 63 current residents.

Those nurses, however, come at a steep price. The county is having to pay the nurse staffing agency $166,400 for the services of four registered nurses for 13 weeks. That equates to $3,200 per nurse per week — or $80 an hour based on a 40-hour work week.

In her memo distributed in advance of Thursday’s meeting, Shackett said the temporary injunction stopping the vaccination mandate will allow the nursing home to operate through the holidays without having to reduce the number of residents and “hopefully this will lighten the burden on our very overworked staff.”

Shackett recommended the commissioners approve temporary pay raises for nursing home employees instead of giving them a one-time bonus.

The recommended raises would remain in effect until a wage compensation study for all county employees is completed sometime this coming spring.

Shackett has identified 76 positions at the nursing home for pay raises.

“Only the grade levels that (are) the most difficult to recruit and/or the most competitive in the marketplace” have been revised, Shackett said.

The raises for the remainder of the year are all told expected to cost between $55,000 and $60,000, Shackett said at Thursday's meeting.

She said that changes would need to be agreed to by the union which represents some nursing home employees before they could take effect.

The funds to cover the wage increases will come from money which is already in the budget.

The county's fiscal year ends on Dec. 31.

The proposed raises range from $1 an hour for a full-time maintenance assistant, to $7.71 an hour for the assistant director of nursing. Most raises would be in the range of $2 to $5 an hour, Shackett said.

Shackett noted that besides the substandard wages, county employees are now looking at “significant” increases in what they will be paying for their health insurance beginning Jan. 1.

She called the recommended raises in the pay scale a “small step in the right direction.” But pointed out: “We will still not be competing with many of the pay rates currently being offered in our community and we are far from competing with the rates paid to traveling nurses.”