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Nursing home workers to act on contract offer

Daily Star, The (Oneonta, NY) - 4/24/2015

April 24--COOPERSTOWN -- Since the former Otsego Manor was privatized last year, the nursing home, now called Focus Otsego, has had to cope with occasional staffing shortages, a situation the new management wants to rectify, according to minutes of meetings of the facility's Family Council and a management spokesman.

Meanwhile, the workers represented by the Civil Service Employees Association, the union that remained at the home after it was sold, will today be asked to ratify a labor contract that will increase wages "for those who have stayed and shown dedication to our residents," said Kirk Dorn, a spokesman for the management company.

Dorn said the company is striving to get away from relying on temporary workers to plug occasional staffing needs.

"We anticipate that when the new contract is in place, the center will be fully staffed by our own personnel," he said in a telephone interview.

According to the minutes of the April 11 meeting of the Focus Otsego Family Council, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Star, Kurt Apthorpe, then the chief administrator at the home, advised the council members that "staffing coverage remains short of goals."

Apthorpe was replaced at the home this week by another licensed nursing home administrator, Shannon Cayea of Oneonta, a former executive for the Susquehanna Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Johnson City. Dorn said Focus had been preparing to hire Cayea prior to the April 11 meeting.

The minutes also took note that an unstated number of Focus Otsego staffers left for jobs at Fox nursing home and "elsewhere."

"Council members commented that they felt staff left because pay was notably more and they would get better benefits, despite Focus having initially indicated that compensation at Focus Otsego would be competitive with other area facilities," the minutes went on to note.

After initially basing pay levels on a regional salary survey of the health sector, Dorn said Focus now recognizes that wages at the nursing home should be elevated in some job categories. Talks held with CSEA representatives, he said, have been "very productive."

"The staff that remained on during the transition he staff have shown a tremendous level of dedication in caring for our residents," Dorn said.

Contacted by The Daily Star, CSEA spokesman Mark Kotzin said: "We have now sat down with the owner and we are working on a plan that would increase wages for the workers, in hopes of maintaining the high quality of care they are providing, to retain good staff and attract more quality workers."

In a letter to Focus Otsego staff this week, Joseph Zupnik, the chief executive officer of the company that controls the facility, said Apthorpe "departs on good terms" and noted he has "professionally overseen the transition from Otsego Manor to Focus Otsego."

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(c)2015 The Daily Star (Oneonta, N.Y.)

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