Gov. Ned Lamont is offering up an additional $150 million in Medicaid funding to the nursing home industry, an increase of 4.5 percent for wage increases in each of the next two years, in hopes of quelling the impending strike of thousands of unionized nursing home employees Friday morning.
In addition, the administration would temporarily boost Medicaid reimbursement by 10 percent for a total of $86 million. And it would add $32 million in hazard pay and retirement enhancements, according to letters sent Monday from Lamont’s budget chief, Melissa McCaw, and Commissioner of the Department of Social Services Deidre Gifford, to the union threatening a strike and nursing home industry officials.
Word of the enhancements comes as SEIU District 1199 of New England workers at six additional homes voted to authorize a walkout on May 28 — bringing the strike threat to 4,000 workers.
Already, more than 3,400 workers at 33 nursing homes in Connecticut are planning to walk off the job starting 6 a.m. May 14. They work at facilities operated by Genesis, iCare, RegalCare and Autumn Lake, with Genesis and iCare operating most of the facilities, 11 respectively.
The Lamont administration is not a direct party in negotiations between SEIU District 1199 workers and nursing home operators over a new contract. But as the major payer through the state-federal Medicaid system, the administration is in talks with both sides to avert a strike.
Talks were all the more tense Monday as facilities prepared to relocate residents at homes that would be hit with a strike at 6 a.m. Friday — some, perhaps, to facilities outside the state. Any nursing home that receives a strike notice is required by law to submit contingency plans, including any discharge plans and how patients would be cared for, to the state Department of Public Health no later than five days before the possible strike.
It was unclear Monday afternoon how many nursing home residents would be relocated and how many would be cared for by replacement workers or managers.
In total, the administration is proposing a $280 million package over the biennium, mostly through Medicaid — which is matched by federal money. Of the total, federal stimulus funding under the recently adopted American Rescue Plan would total $25.5 million, for the hazard pay enhancements and workforce development and training.
That stimulus money would be allowed because the industry is experiencing financial instability due to the pandemic.
Melissa McCaw called the funding proposal “an unprecedented amount of financial support in a two-year period never seen in Connecticut’s history,” in the letters Monday, saying increases for workers have averaged 1.1 percent over the last 14 years.
There was no immediate public response to the letters from either the industry or the union. In addition to the nursing home employees, about 2,000 group home workers, also from District 1199, voted Friday to authorize a strike effective May 21 — with many of the same issues as the nursing home workers.
“Over 4,000 nursing home works have set a deadline for their companies and the state to take us seriously,” said Jesse Martin of SEIU District 1199, at a press conference Monday on a report outlining poor working conditions, including understaffing and low wages, at Connecticut nursing homes during the pandemic.
Matt Barrett, president and CEO of Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, an association of one hundred and fifty skilled nursing facilities and assisted living communities, said in a statement Monday that the industry needs hundreds of millions of dollars in additional help.
The pandemic led to a “15% decline in occupancy” at nursing homes, which was “accompanied by a commensurate increase in operating costs, and new pressures to recognize the critically important work of nursing home employees with wage and benefit increases,” Barrett said.
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