AJ News

SCRANTON – Lackawanna County commissioners on Wednesday approved a letter of intent to sell the Lackawanna County Health Care Center to Miami-based Millennium Management LLC for $13.4 million.

In the next 60 days, details of the sale will be negotiated, and the sale should be finalized by early next year, commissioners said.

During the summer, Lackawanna County hired Haverford Healthcare to oversee the brokerage services for the sale of the 272-bed, two-story facility on Terrace Drive, Peckville, that specializes in skilled care and short-term rehabilitation and has a 60-bed special care unit.

Theresa Viscardis, chief operating officer of Millennium Management, said the company owns and operates 60 nursing homes in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina. This would be Millennium’s first purchase in Pennsylvania. Viscardis cited high elderly populations in Pennsylvania as a reason the company is looking to expand to the state.

Viscardis said not many changes are planned for the facility.

“There’s been a lot of uncertainty among residents and employees at the facility as to their future,” said Commissioner Corey O’Brien.

Viscardis said that she intends to meet with all of the nursing home’s employees and patients in upcoming weeks. She said no job cuts or patient reductions are anticipated. Current union contracts will be honored and the current management team will remain in place, Viscardis added.

The county is expected to save $5 million through the nursing home sale, said minority commissioner A.J. Munchak, which will be used to pay down debt. Munchak said he opposed the sale but said it was expected to keep county officials from having to raise taxes.

“I didn’t want us to sell this,” Munchak said.

Munchak said the transaction is expected to have “no effect” on jobs targeted to be eliminated under the proposed 2010 budget.

The proposed $84.2 million budget includes no tax hike but proposes 30 job cuts and that 12 vacancies not be filled. A hotel tax would also be increased from four to five percent. The 2010 budget calls for about $2 million less in expenditures compared to the previous year.

It is expected to come up for a vote at the next commissioners’ meeting on Wednesday at 10 a.m.