Discussion on Nursing Home Closures, LB840, and People Attraction

Jenny Nixon Author

10/08/2024 Added

1 Plays

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Group discussion on nursing home closures in Valentine and Crawford, how to attract and keep people in rural communities, and using LB840 funds for workforce recruitment (especially medical professionals). Recorded 12/1/2021.

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[00:00:00.000]deeper dive into i wouldn't mind having a deeper dive into source link at some point
[00:00:06.860]now that it's online yep gary dusik did a little bit with my leadership class
[00:00:12.460]um monday morning and it's it's pretty awesome well that is be good
[00:00:19.860]and i don't know who who you might ask i got the guy the guy that builds it oh well
[00:00:27.760]yeah sounds good he is awesome um but on the other hand you know from the nbdc side you know that
[00:00:36.940]that is very interesting as well and so you know if gary's got some good insight we could
[00:00:43.760]certainly ask him to talk about that usefulness to people i guess yeah or kathy um i you know
[00:00:51.520]i don't know how busy she is but i think she likes an opportunity to kind of reach out and
[00:00:57.440]touch some people and i think that's a good thing to do i think that's a good thing to do
[00:00:57.740]folks that are maybe using this on a more regular basis so um and i'd be happy to ask her jenny if
[00:01:05.220]you want me to or i would love to have kathy that would be great okay yeah so what what date are we
[00:01:11.600]talking about well let's let's uh of the group that's on here how is your december looking we've
[00:01:18.780]got three tuesdays that would fit us in december i know that mine is pretty busy i was thinking
[00:01:27.420]we used to do this on wednesday but i could be completely screwed up i'm sorry wednesday
[00:01:32.160]that's sorry did i say tuesday it's wednesday isn't it yes it is i lost the day somewhere i
[00:01:39.840]don't know you know all my wednesdays are open so far so um i would think the 29th might be a
[00:01:50.280]bit of a challenge between the holidays with folks being gone but i would think 15 or 22
[00:01:57.100]would work jenny i don't know why not well we'd be regularly scheduled on the 15th if you want to
[00:02:04.640]do that yeah i might be a little late that day but i think it would work
[00:02:09.560]so welcome everybody we're just kind of um looking looking ahead in our calendar
[00:02:17.320]and deb mentioned that she'd really like to have a a little deeper dive into source link
[00:02:22.460]so um uh gary dusik and chadron was uh
[00:02:26.780]talking to her leadership class about it and it was uh gave her a good idea of what
[00:02:31.440]it's there and uh so wondering if maybe kathy lang would come and give us a little really
[00:02:38.820]good look at that here comes mike and looking at maybe the 15th of december for that here
[00:02:47.340]comes that beautiful waterfall mike and his waterfall
[00:02:50.540]that's on the snake isn't it that's pretty yeah
[00:02:56.460]welcome mike and sean
[00:03:02.180]welcome good to see you guys
[00:03:06.460]so without a regularly scheduled person i um i thought we'd have a little conversations about
[00:03:13.840]what do we want to do in december and so deb is looking forward to a more deeper dive into
[00:03:20.620]the source link which has just been you know released and i'm just going to ask kathy
[00:03:26.140]lang if she would join us i think that'd be awesome and looking at the 15th of december
[00:03:33.300]what are you guys's december is looking like
[00:03:35.100]it's looking like december basketball starts wrestling starts christmas parties deer hunting
[00:03:47.920]yes all those fun things well if we can get kathy on the 15th i'd say let's
[00:03:55.820]go ahead and do that but then um not plan to not meet on the 29th which is our next
[00:04:02.180]regularly scheduled one since that's right up against our you know new year and oh my gosh
[00:04:08.000]what's going to happen then let's go into uh january and see
[00:04:14.100]a january calendar here
[00:04:15.920]no bother i'll have to wait for something else electronic that has a january calendar
[00:04:25.500]all right so january looks like the next regular schedule one would be the 12th
[00:04:33.100]of january and then let's let's talk about every two weeks um i know i've had a couple people said
[00:04:42.400]have said to me you know that it was great when we were cooped up in our houses or whatever but
[00:04:48.960]maybe maybe we don't need to spend quite so much time at this and and do a better job on like a
[00:04:55.180]schedule what do you think i'm one of those that that mentioned that as we get back to more of our
[00:05:02.100]travel you know that's the that's the difference for me because when i travel to a meeting it's
[00:05:08.320]you know generally a couple hours and so you add that with um scheduling this every other wednesday
[00:05:14.940]kind of kind of gets to the point where i'm meeting myself coming and going so
[00:05:20.400]if the rest of the group is is interested in doing that more than once a month
[00:05:24.860]i'm okay with it i just probably won't make as make all of them which i don't i don't anyway so
[00:05:30.960]um but i i personally think for my purposes once a month is a is a good way to check in with
[00:05:38.100]everybody and and um make scheduling a little bit easier if it's only one time you got to plug this
[00:05:45.620]in why don't we make it difficult and go like every three weeks can't hear you mike
[00:05:54.540]hang on there you go oh well i thought i unmuted it how about if we make it difficult and go every
[00:06:02.800]three weeks no um i think that i i would be okay with once a month
[00:06:11.420]i like the two weeks because it gives us a chance but it's i know it's hard to come up with
[00:06:18.780]topics and speakers and and those kind of things to line things up
[00:06:24.220]so unless we would get some kind of a rotation set up saying well mike you're responsible for
[00:06:31.320]the speaker next week or whatever and deb the week the two weeks after or something like that but
[00:06:35.760]i i think once a month for right now we kind of went to the two weeks when covet hit
[00:06:39.500]uh even though covet is still around um once a month i think it'd be all right
[00:06:46.240]well i'll take a look at redoing that schedule and
[00:06:53.900]sending those send those out let's start in uh in january with that with that thought and
[00:06:58.980]we'll have deb contact kathy lang and if you can get her on board let me know so i can send her a
[00:07:07.160]link we'll hopefully meet with her on the 15th of december and then go to the second wednesday
[00:07:14.140]for each month just for future planning purposes so like the the 12th the 9th
[00:07:23.880]of february the 9th of march 13th of april that kind of schedule is that a good a good time frame
[00:07:31.960]works for me but it also helps to have that plugged in and sort of reserved
[00:07:39.780]and jamie reminded me that it would be a really good idea to have uh scott on our um our the guy
[00:07:49.420]the architect to talk about um source link so i can ask him
[00:07:53.860]or jamie if you wanted to uh that would be awesome you know the guy that builds in the
[00:07:59.220]background is it's really awesome to have well i suspect kathy would want someone else
[00:08:04.560]on board whether she's there or not so i was going to kind of leave that up to her but yeah
[00:08:09.760]to invite scott i can tell her we're inviting scott as well and would she want to come on and
[00:08:14.080]say a few words about it okay all right let's plan that okay so what else is up with you guys
[00:08:23.080]what's going on
[00:08:23.840]all the places you're at chelsea's knee deep and stuff
[00:08:29.800]jenny what's going on with the nursing home in crawford i know they were
[00:08:35.780]they announced that our nursing home in valentine was closing i'm still pretty mad about that but
[00:08:40.320]um what's going on with crawford because i know there were some other communities that were
[00:08:44.420]on the verge i guess well i haven't heard anymore we did have a public meeting in the
[00:08:50.300]in the community and and that was very nice to to try and
[00:08:53.820]remind people what what goes on in the background of these places and and what kind of an impact it
[00:09:01.260]makes in the community but i haven't heard anything else at all have you did i do have a
[00:09:06.620]quick update um ed coonall who is a crawford city council member sits on my board and at our last
[00:09:13.000]board meeting he shared that the city and the board for ponderosa villa are in communication
[00:09:21.560]with a different
[00:09:23.800]management company one that has taken several nearly defunct nearly broke nearly having to
[00:09:32.020]close nursing homes and bringing them back to a level where they're not only profitable but
[00:09:38.040]the city gets a certain amount of payment from them he is convinced that the biggest reason that
[00:09:48.620]this nursing home was supposedly close to closing was the management
[00:09:53.780]so he said that they were working on some sort of an agreement and that he fully expected that to
[00:10:01.420]to take place and that the nursing home would not only survive but would probably
[00:10:07.340]be better off in the long run which is great news if that in fact happens
[00:10:12.780]i talked with one of the other rpn educators here a couple weeks ago and he knew of somebody who had
[00:10:20.080]done that uh you know they've thrown out and thrown out the
[00:10:23.760]director whoever the nursing home management company was and brought one back and he's he's
[00:10:29.340]retired now and so i was trying to get him to come on here and i haven't been able to make any
[00:10:33.740]progress but having somebody's experience like that i thought would be really interesting to
[00:10:38.500]hear about yeah i don't know who managed yours mike but um this one out here is managed by a
[00:10:44.640]firm that is run by a former nebraska hhs director um and i don't know
[00:10:53.740]all the details but he is not always held up in the highest esteem um i don't know that that's
[00:11:01.680]warranted or not i'm trying to be careful here um because because he was in some hot water when
[00:11:07.340]he was director of hhs that was way back in the ben nelson era so um ron has been around a lot
[00:11:13.780]of years i think he knows the business but apparently there's a feeling at least from the
[00:11:19.800]the city council that there are ways to go about this
[00:11:23.720]short of um a wholesale um subsidy from sales tax or something like that so that's the route
[00:11:32.340]they're going to go which i think is encouraging at least to the 40 some people who work there
[00:11:37.480]and those residents whose families want them to stay there i can imagine how tough that is mike
[00:11:44.100]to see those folks leave in town because i saw on ronda ronda what's your name from down at um
[00:11:53.700]clander um they had to move their mom somewhere yeah it's it's been pretty tough and ours was
[00:12:01.780]managed by it's been a good samaritan center um out of sioux falls since the 60s and um then it
[00:12:09.680]was taken over of course that was taken over by sanford they called it emerge but it wasn't it was
[00:12:14.600]taken over um by sanford and i still think that there's some shenanigans at ours um because we
[00:12:23.680]talked to the folks at the ainsworth care center and they got a three hundred thousand dollar
[00:12:28.100]stimulus check from the government last year and the valentine center didn't see anything like that
[00:12:34.280]they got a first bpp thing right off the bat and then the second one came to ainsworth unannounced
[00:12:40.000]or whatever local administration and they said no we never got anything in a second round of that
[00:12:46.540]and i my personal opinion is that uh sanford siphoned that off at the top
[00:12:53.660]on the corporate level and never passed that down because they knew that some of these centers were
[00:12:58.000]in trouble and they weren't going to pump the money into that and we worked for two years to
[00:13:02.220]try to come up with a plan we had a loan package and then in the end we had we were going to give
[00:13:07.140]them 25 000 a year to stay open while we kind of came up with a plan to see if it was feasible for
[00:13:14.400]the city or somebody else or look for another operator that could make it operate we had two
[00:13:18.960]or three different people come in nobody could figure out how they could do it uh and
[00:13:23.640]make any make it even break even on it and i know the city wasn't going to assume a twenty five
[00:13:29.160]thousand dollar a month hold to pour money down and then all all i don't know they kind of broke
[00:13:36.600]off communication with us and nobody said anything and then all of a sudden which we kind of figured
[00:13:42.280]was coming they announced they were closing by the end of the year and now a couple of things on that
[00:13:48.440]when we were going to give them the money every month they were going to sell if they decided to
[00:13:53.620]give the facility the nursing home facility long-term care facility to the city for a dollar
[00:13:59.440]and we were supposed to get that and we figured there was some value there because of housing
[00:14:03.420]needs and that kind of stuff now talking to the real estate person at Sanford they don't even
[00:14:09.300]know if they're going to do that so my wife worked for Good Samaritan for 15 years and she said all
[00:14:17.080]of those centers were paid for by local community funds that asked Good Samaritan to come in and
[00:14:23.600]nursing homes in their communities and so technically that building was paid for to
[00:14:28.220]start with by community funds and it should go back to the community so we might get down to
[00:14:32.800]play that trump card a little bit later on but I don't know it's so they're closing and we're
[00:14:38.480]trying to look at home health care when we're building new houses look at the adaptable housing
[00:14:45.380]that we talked about with the gal from South Dakota here a while back and then try to look
[00:14:50.860]at home health care that can help people stay in their homes longer
[00:14:53.580]to keep them here but our biggest problem wasn't mismanagement as much as it was
[00:14:59.300]finding workers they couldn't find the staff residents to make enough money well that yeah
[00:15:08.200]that was the blame that that the Crawford management company said too it was that exorbitant
[00:15:15.160]traveling health care fee that they had to pay is what made them go broke and and we understand that
[00:15:23.560]it's been a challenge for everybody just like hiring people for your front counter work I mean
[00:15:28.500]it's it is definitely a true issue however you know this guy stood up in front of a hundred and
[00:15:35.960]some people in Crawford and said we need every one of you to come put in an application to be
[00:15:41.500]a CNA I mean that's he was like pleading with the public so I I don't know how
[00:15:47.280]how skilled they've been at searching that out because I think there are people
[00:15:53.540]in communities the size of Valentine Crawford that would very clearly be willing to step up
[00:16:01.200]to the plate if that's what it took to keep their nursing home there now what they have the authority
[00:16:06.980]to do in terms of hiring staff and certifications and all of that may make it so difficult that that
[00:16:15.000]can't happen on a on a you know this month you work you know volunteer wise or whatever so I don't know the
[00:16:23.520]answer to that Mike but I do think there were a lot of communities sort of in the same boat as
[00:16:30.480]Valentine and there must be some sort of overall discussion even at a state government level
[00:16:37.580]to try to figure out how we how we stave that off because the the population average population in
[00:16:46.740]Nebraska is not getting younger we're going to have more of that need I would think than less
[00:16:53.500]you know they they also claim that advances in treating Alzheimer's and some of those things
[00:17:00.280]have created less need you know they keep telling us what it is we need in terms of number of of
[00:17:06.600]beds because it cannot support itself it's got to be subsidized at some level and they want to
[00:17:12.640]subsidize the least that they have to through Medicare or Medicaid I mean so I mean it's a
[00:17:18.400]it's a terribly complicated funding mechanism as well as
[00:17:23.480]you know determining what your market truly is I don't know what the answer is but I think
[00:17:29.900]I think it's worth asking either our state senators or someone within the governor's
[00:17:37.300]office or somebody at HHS to tell us how the state's gonna gonna respond to this because
[00:17:43.940]we're shipping our people eventually out of state let alone out of their hometown
[00:17:49.300]well I think one of the simple things is raise
[00:17:53.460]Medicaid reimbursements because they're losing $35 to $50 a day for every resident
[00:17:59.200]on Medicaid and the trick is you have to have about a 60% private pay and 40% or less Medicaid
[00:18:05.980]or you're going to be losing money every day yes and that's exactly what Ron told the crowd
[00:18:11.500]that night and and that's you would hope that would be a simple solution but it is far from
[00:18:17.180]simple well it's got to go through the legislature which goes back to you saying you get Tom Brewer on
[00:18:23.440]or Erdland or somebody that can speak to that and and say how do we go about um I mean we just
[00:18:31.040]can't throw economic that's a federal issue though Mike Medicaid is a federal issue well
[00:18:37.860]then we need to start with these guys and get Deb Fisher on and get those guys and say you know
[00:18:41.780]we're this is struggling because I mean Valentine lost 25 jobs because of that could have had 35 to
[00:18:48.380]40 jobs if they could have kept it full agreed
[00:18:53.420]it is definitely economic development it's quality of life it's it's people retention
[00:18:59.160]it's jobs it's all of those things I don't want to dominate the conversation here so there's other
[00:19:04.740]people on here do you guys have any other comment other than than Deb and I because Deb and I can
[00:19:09.500]go back and forth on this and on a private call sometime or just I'll go to Shadron we'll have
[00:19:15.300]coffee well since you guys brought it up I'm presenting to the Nebraska
[00:19:23.400]Rural Electric Association on Thursday on rural Nebraska population trends and then Senator
[00:19:30.920]Williams is going to follow about how that impacted the recent legislative redistricting
[00:19:37.900]process I'm staying out of the politics and talking about the demographic changes and
[00:19:42.440]Senator Williams can follow up but since I've created this slide deck using data from CPAR
[00:19:47.940]UNL's David Draws Center for Public Affairs Research and he just did all the data and
[00:19:53.380]number crunching from the last census and so I used to do that stuff but he still does
[00:19:58.600]it so but I'm happy to share that with this group if that's of interest especially in
[00:20:03.440]light of you know Deb and Mike what you guys said how this the workforce part of the
[00:20:08.800]presentation is the workforce impact on health care so there's a couple of things what I
[00:20:14.320]would suggest is one spend a little time like 20 minutes on just general the demographic
[00:20:20.440]changes in Nebraska's rural counties especially the panhandle
[00:20:23.360]and then two there was a study specifically with health care nursing shortage and how
[00:20:29.620]the pandemic impacted the health care workforce that I heard from I can't remember the name
[00:20:36.860]of the group but I could sure get a hold of that and make it you know a 35 minute piece
[00:20:42.940]so two pieces one start with the demographic and then second follow up with the the findings
[00:20:47.980]from this really big midwestern study on health care workforce trends
[00:20:53.340]and how the pandemic impacted that and what communities can do about it so there's a couple
[00:20:58.580]I guess I'm volunteering to have a topic sometime in the future since I'm one I've already prepared
[00:21:05.720]the one and then the other one would be more relevant to what you Deb you and Mike had just
[00:21:10.900]talked about more general than nursing homes that this is going to be you know a health care
[00:21:17.040]workforce in general of course but I think what I heard really applies to the workforce in general
[00:21:23.320]not just health care it's not just about the money it's about being flexible with your employees and
[00:21:30.760]having benefits and some of those things so about employee retention type stuff so really interesting
[00:21:38.040]just on that I always like it when someone else will interpret those ungodly tables of numbers and
[00:21:45.580]and whatnot so yeah I'd love to hear that okay I don't know if you guys want to put me on for like
[00:21:53.300]or if that's too late because I don't know if because January I might be at a different thing
[00:21:58.240]than regular scheduled time but it's up to you so how about if Chelsea gives us a report on the
[00:22:05.440]open sky and hear you Mike can't hear you oh what's going on oh my I'm muted right can you
[00:22:14.280]hear me can you hear me now yep I don't know anyway Chelsea said she set in on the open sky thing
[00:22:23.280]yesterday, maybe she can kind of give us her summary of that.
[00:22:27.320]can you can you hear me yes okay well I've struggling with the voice so I'll get close
[00:22:35.970]to my microphone um no it was it was beneficial they did record it so they will send it out to
[00:22:43.310]the listserv and post it to their website it was actually just in the last hour um before this
[00:22:49.470]meeting with Senator uh Bo Starr was on with uh Kyle Argenbright and a couple other folks um
[00:22:58.330]ladies um different professions one was a recruiter a physician recruiter for uh the
[00:23:04.750]medical center um another doctor and um just a a woman of color that's a professional
[00:23:14.490]so I missed the first five minutes of the the introductions
[00:23:18.790]um
[00:23:19.290]due to a phone call but anyway that's how she kept identifying herself throughout
[00:23:23.710]but it was really interesting for the fact that a lot of the things that we maybe hear
[00:23:30.030]are the issues aren't really the issues of why people don't come here um I mean some of it being
[00:23:36.350]housing do they have a place to live obviously is is a huge concern but um the the broadband
[00:23:43.610]so the connectivity child care after school programs which we've always been talking about
[00:23:49.270]but the main thing that they hear whether it's trying to recruit physicians
[00:23:53.990]other professionals one of the gals was from the teaching industry you know so professors
[00:24:01.050]teachers things like that was they want someone to they just want to feel welcomed and included
[00:24:07.610]and um so uh I think the medical center has a community onboarding liaison so
[00:24:19.250]they are connecting if the person accepts the job they're connecting them with someone in the
[00:24:25.770]community so like an assigned friend point of contact someone that gets to know them and can
[00:24:33.970]connect them to their hobbies their interests their kids uh if they have a family things like
[00:24:41.470]that which I know a lot of us probably do maybe we could be doing it a little bit better I don't know
[00:24:49.230]or if we're not doing it we should be doing it but um but then also they want to know you know
[00:24:56.990]what's in the community of wellness do you have you know all your quality of life the placemaking
[00:25:02.650]that Jenny and I have been talking about you know they want to want to know the best coffee shop to
[00:25:08.810]go to um to meet people that's it's all about connecting the people like can they make friends
[00:25:15.890]can they feel accepted and included
[00:25:19.210]um I was hoping they'd dive a little bit further into um because they kept talking about legislation
[00:25:27.610]you know like using LB 840 to pay down student loans you know like I was I was thinking that's
[00:25:33.650]where we were gonna go but we didn't so I don't know if it's just because we ran out of time
[00:25:38.570]um but I was very curious you know well how how is that being used um in in the communities as
[00:25:44.970]well so I thought it was beneficial um Kyle throughout the year you know you've been
[00:25:49.190]a statistic that 18 of the 93 counties grew in population that means 80 of us 80 percent of us
[00:25:57.570]lost population and um we're not losing people because of our taxes we're not losing
[00:26:06.530]you know things like that because like Kyle says Mike you will know you know you're nine miles from
[00:26:13.070]South Dakota and you have people that live at Valentine that work in South Dakota you know it's
[00:26:18.210]it's it's because they
[00:26:19.170]like what Valentine had to offer for their family or their interests things like that so I don't know
[00:26:26.870]I thought it was a good presentation so I just wish it would have went 30 minutes longer
[00:26:34.710]oh we have a
[00:26:49.150]screen sharing there's your preview for the February talk since Chelsea just brought it up
[00:26:54.290]okay is that the 18 county thing she talked about then yeah I mean you can see the ones and
[00:27:02.070]everything in gray is population loss like she said the 80 counties right and the white
[00:27:08.450]and the red are staying the same or increasing so that's just a graphic of what Chelsea just
[00:27:14.770]said I'm guessing that's what Kyle shared so
[00:27:17.630]so
[00:27:19.130]but this is not my you guys got to wait till February
[00:27:22.650]thanks Sean
[00:27:26.730]so Jamie would you expand on what you were talking about there the 218 relocate I'm trying
[00:27:41.210]to remember what webinar I heard about it in it was a couple months ago where someone
[00:27:49.110]mentioned this community does kind of what Chelsea was talking about where I'm trying
[00:27:57.490]to find it on the website the community concierge program where they do basically assign you
[00:28:07.010]someone to help you figure out the community and get to know the places to go and where
[00:28:15.690]the hospital is all of those different things.
[00:28:19.090]I'll just share what I found here this is on that page at 218 relocate yeah and I think
[00:28:36.370]if you scroll down they have several different things they're trying to get telecommuters
[00:28:41.590]to move there so they reimburse some moving expenses and then they have a co-working space
[00:28:49.070]and then I think the next one down is that community concierge program
[00:28:54.270]tell them the hiking trails in the area choose your lifestyle awesome they've really done a nice
[00:29:02.450]job with that go to the top of the page here
[00:29:09.290]so any uh touristy type areas or outdoor recreation areas more like in your area Jenny
[00:29:19.050]could maybe promote something like that
[00:29:21.490]yeah it was interesting um Kyle I think it was Kyle or it was Pam one of those two you know
[00:29:32.030]talked about you know if they are losing people that like left their community it was because they
[00:29:39.590]wanted to move to the mountains or you know so the front range or the black hills things like that
[00:29:49.030]um and then the physician recruiter she says we try to only recruit
[00:29:56.410]um those professions that are already in states that touch us so the midwest um because they know
[00:30:06.830]that they can't compete with the west coast or east coast um to get you know they can't she says
[00:30:13.090]we can't compete with an ocean period you know and and stuff and so
[00:30:19.010]you know it was just kind of i guess a little bit refreshing that you know
[00:30:23.150]yes some of it's repetitive but it's not because our taxes like they're like
[00:30:29.070]not there are six presenters not one of them said taxes um were a deterrent in the recruitment
[00:30:37.130]efforts which i found very interesting from the fact because i know that that's something i hear
[00:30:42.810]sound bites on you know it's all your taxes are too high so i'm gonna live here in wyoming
[00:30:48.990]or whatever so i don't know it was just it was interesting so i'm glad i sat in on it
[00:30:54.890]yeah it does sounds like some really good information i'm sorry i i missed that but
[00:31:01.350]i'll have to look at the archive sean said he was going to send out those slides to jenny so
[00:31:08.190]we can all get them and we don't have to wait for two months or three months to get them so
[00:31:11.930]thanks sean you're welcome um sean and
[00:31:18.970]i ran across each other at that leadership symposium down in mccook a couple fridays ago
[00:31:24.650]which i thought i didn't make it for the thursday night stuff sean but um the the friday sessions
[00:31:30.450]and stuff was i thought was really good so um i've talked to andy long about doing that in
[00:31:37.730]valentine next year so yeah the networking for these things if we haven't seen each other in a
[00:31:44.530]while it's just really valuable about how you take what you heard and apply that to your own
[00:31:48.950]community or organization it's just hard to have balanced ideas back and forth i mean we do a
[00:31:55.250]pretty good job with these venues but um some different people they're like community local
[00:32:01.730]champions that aren't like us resource providers they have day jobs and yet they've taken their
[00:32:08.010]time to volunteer and step up it's really great to hear those stories and how they're doing that
[00:32:13.010]in other nebraska towns and so that's what i thought was valuable plus seeing strange people
[00:32:18.930]like mike and jeff yost so you know we're trying to get back into the the mode we were in a couple
[00:32:27.990]years ago and i i don't know if any of you have been to the connecting entrepreneurial communities
[00:32:33.210]that we've had in nebraska we had a virtual one two years ago and and now i know one of our
[00:32:39.990]colleagues is looking at coming back to a real one in this next year and valentine is certainly
[00:32:48.910]interest um i'm thinking columbus maybe was the other one that was going to have it next year and
[00:32:55.270]then valentine probably the year after that is what the is what the consensus is so awesome
[00:33:00.990]oh it certainly seems like a lot of fun i went to the virtual one and
[00:33:05.330]it was certainly broader set of topics because we had states from all over and it was it was a
[00:33:18.890]it was a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun and
[00:33:21.890]oh isn't michigan doing something virtual that we're invited to potentially
[00:33:28.250]yeah and they were one of the the key players in the last one that i was at so yeah
[00:33:34.730]but i think for people in nebraska you know community people getting them together in
[00:33:41.570]another community that's not terribly far away and talking over solutions to problems
[00:33:48.870]and new innovative ways of doing stuff is is fun and then getting the opportunity to
[00:33:54.670]walk yourself downtown and see how other communities do it that's just well it's like
[00:33:59.990]meeting here in the alliance week or so ago that was so much fun to see what's really going on
[00:34:09.010]with your community businesses so i'm always going to vote for that if we can get back to it here
[00:34:15.390]sean do you know
[00:34:18.850]what what month maybe that's getting scheduled for they haven't decided there was some discussion
[00:34:24.550]about march or april in columbus but that might be too quick to pull off and then so then it was
[00:34:29.230]they're talking about moving it back to the fall like like october so if i had to guess it's
[00:34:35.150]probably going to be um the connecting communities entrepreneurial comes will be october in
[00:34:40.830]columbus and myla and that might you know coordinate with the envision columbus process
[00:34:46.630]i don't know what's going on there but there was some
[00:34:48.830]discussions with the chamber director there so um but the lead you open mike to uh talk
[00:34:55.570]to andy and get the rural leadership summer up there in valentine this next year so
[00:34:59.470]okay what else what else is on your minds
[00:35:18.810]christmas i know uh jenny um i don't know this group might be interested in
[00:35:28.730]kind of where the schedule is for potential hire of a director of rural prosperity nebraska
[00:35:40.450]um three finalists came to the state were interviewed a couple weeks ago
[00:35:48.790]and um they are uh there's a search advisor committee that's meeting tomorrow to um review the
[00:36:01.610]responses to the visits by those folks and uh so we actually may be in a position to make an
[00:36:12.750]offer one of these days we wait long enough they'll all go away we know that
[00:36:18.770]don't say that don't say that yeah we did have some very very good candidates and it was um it
[00:36:25.010]was really fun to interview them and potentially they will help shape and direct our program the
[00:36:30.870]the rural prosperity nebraska and what we do in communities um this would be a
[00:36:35.410]a position where they could also do uh research which is something the university doesn't really
[00:36:43.330]have much of in this area community development's just not been one of our
[00:36:48.750]really strong points so that's refreshing
[00:36:51.750]okay and potentially we'll have a new dean of extension sooner or later we've had a priority
[00:36:59.050]candidate here for uh i don't know several weeks now and he's toured around the the state a little
[00:37:04.930]bit and people are getting to know him and um i don't know when they actually offer that position
[00:37:13.470]but uh hopefully that will happen fairly soon as well because both of those things i think will
[00:37:18.730]help shape what nebraska extension does in rural communities absolutely
[00:37:26.010]let's see we do have another um extension educator position open too uh just i've had a
[00:37:37.110]couple people have been interested in we've uh filled the kimball position i'm sorry kimball
[00:37:42.150]jamie we filled the cheyenne position with jamie and we have a person who's going to be hired in
[00:37:48.710]and she is finishing out a contract and we'll start in may i believe so that's those two are
[00:37:56.730]spoken for but we do have one in butler county i believe so
[00:38:01.570]looking forward to finding ways to to fill out our our numbers of folks around the state
[00:38:08.030]anything else today folks
[00:38:18.690]well has anyone used their lb 840 uh for recruitment at all um pay down student loans
[00:38:29.630]for some of your professions which professions um been going back and forth with our legal
[00:38:36.350]counsel for the city um for the last week on how we can make this happen
[00:38:41.550]um we did chelsea um we had a new farm well we needed a
[00:38:48.670]pharmacist and so we went through the hhs program where we actually contributed like
[00:38:54.130]15 000 and they matched that and then um we got her in place that it's well we just got
[00:39:02.050]done with that here a few months ago so we did that for like a three-year period 15 000 a year
[00:39:06.750]for three years and she has another pharmacist that's working with her now and um we had talked
[00:39:15.070]about doing that for the second pharmacist so we had another pharmacist work
[00:39:18.650]in her office and um economic development board the people that we only had three out of our five
[00:39:24.110]members there that night they were a little they kind of thought it wasn't really a pressing need
[00:39:29.030]because we had a pharmacist um but i was trying to express to them that you know you don't want
[00:39:35.070]to burn out a pharmacist and have be the only pharmacist in town other than the hospital one
[00:39:40.210]so i thought well maybe what we could do is work with the pharmacy owner and they pay like 5 000
[00:39:48.630]and they end up getting a ten thousand dollar match or something but we're going to bring that
[00:39:52.970]back to the ed board at our meeting this month and try to get all of our members there to really
[00:39:57.530]talk about the need for that so but our city attorney had drawn that up i believe i don't
[00:40:03.510]know what kind of an agreement there was rachel wolf at the hhs was the one that we talked to
[00:40:08.170]and she would just send me which would be in your position every three months you'd have to do a
[00:40:13.850]deal that said yep they were still working there they were still full time they were in the office
[00:40:18.610]i think so for information we can talk about that
[00:40:29.890]thanks
[00:40:32.310]anybody else have any experiences like that
[00:40:43.650]or know of other
[00:40:48.590]communities i could maybe call on if it's not you um get a hold of kristen olsen at ainsworth i'm not
[00:40:56.410]seems like we talked about that at one time and i can't remember if they'd actually done that or not
[00:41:01.890]it was actually i thought was pretty simple and it just made sense to
[00:41:05.770]when you need a professional the only thing that we've run into is hhs's definition you have to be
[00:41:13.370]in an underserved area for one thing and we were but that's the only thing that we've run into
[00:41:18.570]that program does not include optometrists so it's for like doctors and i think maybe nurse
[00:41:24.450]practitioners pharmacists you know all those kind of things but optometrists are not considered a
[00:41:30.850]medical profession or something i don't know what was were physical therapists do you recall um
[00:41:39.170]i don't recall for sure it seems like they were but i mean i think that's available on their
[00:41:45.030]website at hhs stuff but rachel wolf would
[00:41:48.550]be the one to contact and if i could ever get my emails to straighten out i'd find
[00:41:52.530]her contact information and send that to you but if you go to the hhs and call them and say
[00:41:58.510]you want to talk to rachel wolf they can buzz you over to her and that works
[00:42:03.750]karen how's scott's bluff and gearing going
[00:42:18.530]well we're keeping out of trouble we just had our pre-ledge where we had the governor come
[00:42:24.630]and state um senator john stener was there as well um had a pretty good crowd and we recorded it
[00:42:36.110]so we're gearing up now for we have a sugar tour happening
[00:42:43.190]uh next week and we only have two spots left we didn't get to do it
[00:42:48.510]last year so that's kind of cool and then last night i went to a open house for brian
[00:42:55.930]um harden who's going to run for the 48th district so i didn't really know him
[00:43:05.210]so they had a pretty good crowd there
[00:43:07.790]awesome and i know stars gonna pop in shortly and she's got a new small business
[00:43:18.490]development assistant that's evidently started this week
[00:43:22.130]well that sounds exciting yeah so we're keeping out of trouble a little bit
[00:43:29.930]can't believe it's december what's a sugar tour
[00:43:34.870]they go through the western sugar and see how they do everything it's pretty automated
[00:43:41.070]they do a packaging which is pretty awesome to see as well so they don't let anyone in very
[00:43:48.470]often so our agribusiness committee supports it and then the money goes towards scholarships
[00:43:55.150]very nice yep that's a big part of this whole region's running those beats through the mill
[00:44:03.070]anybody else want to contribute anything
[00:44:18.450]otherwise we could give you 15 minutes back yeah i've got to go so i appreciate everybody's
[00:44:25.210]comments and and discussion today um and uh so we're going to see you in the middle of this
[00:44:30.650]month right yep if we can and uh sean if we can't get um kathy and scott lined up for the 15th i'll
[00:44:39.430]give you a call awesome awesome i'll i'll email her right now sounds good thank you folks we'll
[00:44:46.930]talk soon
[00:44:48.430]bye
[00:44:48.690]you
[00:44:50.690]you
[00:44:52.750]Thank you.

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Discussion on Nursing Home Closures, LB840, and People Attraction

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