"A Moral Decision" - Finance Committee Endorses $100 Million New Our Island Home

The proposed $100 million new Our Island Home nursing facility earned the endorsement of the Finance Committee on Tuesday, sending what would be the most expensive municipal project in island history to Town Meeting with a positive recommendation.

Despite some members expressing deep reservations about the price tag and the town's ongoing financial subsidy of the municipal nursing home, a majority of the Finance Committee felt the town's obligation to care for its elderly residents in need of skilled nursing care outweighed those concerns.

"This is a moral decision," said Finance Committee member Peter N. Schaeffer, who voted against the previous $8 million appropriation to fund the design of the facility but since changed his mind on the project after speaking to staff and residents of Our Island Home. "Financially, it doesn't work. It’s a moral decision. Do we want to save our elderly who are ill and need nursing care? Or say, when that time comes, 'Goodbye. Go find someplace on the mainland.' But there's nothing available on the Cape. The Cape is full, and you’ll be two hours away by the time someone comes to visit you. It is your final home on Nantucket, no questions about it."

The final vote by the Finance Committee was 6-3, with Chris Glowacki, Stephen Maury, Joanna Roche, Rob Giacchetti, Jeremy Bloomer, and Schaeffer supporting the positive motion at Town Meeting. Finance Committee chair Denice Kronau, along with Jill Vieth and Joseph Wright voted against the motion.

Wright offered the strongest argument against the town appropriating the $100 million that will be necessary to build the facility, calling it fiscally irresponsible. Based on a pro forma assembled by the town's Finance Department for the project, Wright stated the annual taxpayer contribution for Our Island Home will increase from the current $5 million to $14.5 million each year for the next 25 years.

"This is a very expensive operation," Wright said. "In a perfect world, you would do everything for everybody, but the world isn’t perfect, and the question is whether you can afford it...This has no economic benefits. It locks us into a bad business for 25 years. If we build this facility, we’re going to be in this business for the rest of time. I agree that it's a nice thing and a morally wonderful thing to do, but whether it’s a smart thing to do financially, that's my question."

If approved by island voters in May, the $105 million appropriation will fund the construction of a 60,000-square-foot, 45-bed new nursing facility at the Sherburne Commons campus off South Shore Road complete with enclosed courtyards and photovoltaic solar arrays. Some rooms would be large enough to allow for the addition of a second bed should OIH need to increase capacity. The new building would allow Nantucket to remain the only municipality in Massachusetts that owns and operates its own nursing home.

Nantucket’s geography and the cost of land make it difficult, if not impossible, for a private organization to operate a nursing home on the island, meaning that without a town-run facility, it is likely that those in need of advanced, specialized nursing care would have to move to the mainland for support. Given the age and inadequacies of the current Our Island Home facility, town leaders believe Nantucket will eventually shutter the nursing home and get out of the business entirely if the voters reject the appropriation at Town Meeting in May. 

That reality weighed heavily on the Finance Committee members during their deliberations on Tuesday.

"If you start from the position that we’re going to take care of this segment of our community, then this is the right project," Finance Committee member Chris Glowacki said. "The appropriate diligence has been done. The $100 million is a big number, but that’s what it costs to build a facility like this. We need to take care of each other in ways you wouldn't do in a commercial environment or another environment."

The cost of the new facility and its impact on island taxpayers was also discussed by the Finance Committee at length.

The town's finance director, Brian Turbitt, told the committee that the average year-round residential property assessed at $2 million with the residential tax exemption would see an annual tax increase of $271. For the average property without the residential exemption, the project would mean an annual tax hike of roughly $700. Turbitt said the town had created a tax rate calculator so island property owners could determine their specific tax rate increase for the Our Island Home project, as well as others on the Town Meeting warrant. 

"In the aggregate, tax rates will have to go up 10 percent to pay for this one project," said Finance Committee member Jeremy Bloomer, who ultimately voted in favor of the positive motion. "It’s a $14 to $15 million - before inflation - cash deficit every year."

Select Board member Dawn Hill Holdgate, who has advocated for the new Our Island Home project over her four terms on the board, joined the Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday to make another pitch for the new facility. She emphasized that voters have already indicated their support for staying in the nursing home business with their approval of the $5 million permanent operating override at the 2021 Annual Town Meeting to subsidize Our Island Home's operating budget. 

"There’s a fundamental choice here," Hill Holdgate said. "The real choice is: do we want to be a Nantucket that takes care of this segment of the population? Because we’re really going to have to send people elsewhere, probably far away. And yes, there are 45 beds at any one time. Those 45 beds turnover, they can be short-term rehab, they can be one of us younger people (who) can go get knee surgery and spend a few nights there. We moved forward with it because we did get the $5 million override passed, and that was an indication from the community that they wanted to take care of their own and continue in this business. Yes, the price tag is higher than anything they've ever seen. It's not going to end because every building from here on out is going to be more than this." 

If voters approve the expenditure at the Annual Town Meeting in May and during a subsequent ballot vote, the preliminary timeline for the project would have construction begin in June of 2025 and likely finish by December of 2027. Three firms responded to the town's request for proposals, and in June, the town selected Consigli Construction as its construction manager at risk, or CMR.

If the preliminary timeline holds, construction would finish over a decade after the Town first asked voters to back a new facility at the Sherburne Commons site in 2017. At the time, the proposal was defeated, and the town spent several years investigating the possibility of a new facility at the current Our Island Home location on East Creek Road, overlooking the harbor. But in 2021, the Select Board voted to pursue a new OIH building by Sherburne Commons, and Town Meeting approved $8.5 million in preliminary funding for the design in 2022.

The town would utilize the existing Our Island Home property on East Creek Road as a site for a new senior center once the new facility is opened.