FinCom Chair Denice Kroneau Breaks With Her Committee To Challenge Funding For New Our Island Home

Just one week after the Finance Committee voted 6-3 to endorse the proposed $100 million new Our Island Home municipal nursing facility, the committee's chair has publicly rebuked the decision.

Denice Kroneau, who was in the minority of the committee's vote earlier this month, spoke out publicly at the most recent Select Board meeting to urge voters against the appropriation. It was a rare - if not unprecedented - instance of a Finance Committee chair publicly advocating against the majority decision of their own committee.

"I am not speaking today on behalf of the Finance Committee, and my comments are not the position of the committee," Kroneau acknowledged as she addressed the Select Board during public comment on Wednesday. "As the Chair of the Finance Committee, I believe it's my responsibility to represent the majority view of the committee and stand behind our recommendations. However, I cannot support the committee's positive motion for the funding of the proposed Our Island Home. Here are my reasons:

"Funding the new building will increase the town's annual subsidy to Our Island Home from $5 million to $14.5 million for the next 25 years," she continued. "We will never be break even on running Our Island Home, and we cannot charge what it costs to run it. Over 25 years, the total cost of ownership of this project is greater than $350 million."

Kroneau added that the Our Island Home project, coupled with other debt exclusion overrides proposed for the May 2025 Annual Town Meeting for a new DPW facility, municipal housing, and a new Tom Nevers bike path, means voters will be considering more than $200 million in override spending that will raise taxes.

"I do not believe this is a fiscally prudent investment for our community, and I'm very concerned about its impact on the individual taxpayer," she told the Select Board.

The town's finance director, Brian Turbitt, told the committee earlier in February 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.

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. It would also be the most expensive municipal project ever undertaken on the island.

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 earlier in February.

"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."

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.

"My position on the financial viability of this project does not negate my deep admiration and appreciation for the dedication of the Our Island Home staff," Kroneau told the Select Board on Wednesday as she concluded her dissenting remarks. "They're the reason I voted in favor of the (previous) $5 million override. In the end, I understand this is an emotional topic. It's not the first emotional topic to come before the Finance Committee, but it's the first one with such far-reaching negative financial impacts."