Nancy Morrill’s Report

Draft Bill of Rights

Eldercare Issues Discussion Group

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Our ordinary fourth-Thursday-of-the-month meeting-time conflicts with Thanksgiving in November and with the day after Christmas in December.  So we are replacing these two meetings with one meeting on Monday, December 9, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. in the Blue Room and on Zoom. 

All are welcome.  Visit our website for the complete agenda and for the Zoom link:  pv-eldercare.org

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One item we will discuss will be the up-coming January Quarterly meeting of the Pennsylvania Alliance of Retirement Community Residents (PARCR) at which the keynote speaker will be Karen Veronikis, who is in charge of CCRC oversight at the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance.  At our meeting on December 9, 2024 we will be discussing questions to bring to Keren Veronikis, and we will be organizing car pools to the PARCR meeting, which is in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania on January 8, 2025.  Any Pennswood Resident who is a PARCR member is eligible to attend the January meeting.  Join at PARCR.org.

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The Eldercare Issues Discussion Group is a gathering of Pennswood Village residents who monitor and discuss issues and trends in the ever-changing Life Care movement.  Its participants seek to discern and define best practices in all areas of resident life, notably with respect to financial transparency, health care, and resident participation in governance.  The Group’s members share their information with fellow residents in Pennswood Village and other communities, with state and federal officials and legislative bodies, and with others who are concerned with and active in the Life Care movement.

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Dan Seeger, Facilitator

For the Eldercare Issues Discussion Group

Our ordinary fourth Thursday meeting time conflicts in November and December with Thanksgiving itself and with the Day after Christmas.  So at last Thursday’s meeting we decided to substitute one meeting for these two.  The substitute meeting will be held on Monday, December 9, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. in the Blue Room and on Zoom.  After that we will resume with our ordinary fourth Thursdays, which in January 2025 will be on January 23, 2025.

Please note these changes in you calendars.  Many thanks.

Daniel A. Seeger

Pennswood Village B-107

Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, July 25, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. in the Blue Room and via Zoom.  Here is the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85878270705

The Agenda and related documents are below

These meetings are open to all Pennswood Village residents, so you should feel free to invite any resident whom you feel might be interested.  You can also forward this message with the Agenda and related documents to them.  Or you can encourage them to visit our website at PV-Eldercare.org.

The Zoom meeting room will open 15 minutes early so that we can resolve any connectivity issues before the meeting’s starting time.  If you are unfamiliar with Zoom we encourage you to come early, or to attend in person in the Blue Room.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Dan Seeger

1. Operating Budget. This is a presentation of income and expenses for the day-in, day out costs of running the community. Obviously, it is in residents’ interest to see that operating income exceeds operating expenses by some modest amount. If expenses exceed income, there is clearly an unsustainable situation which needs correction. If income exceeds expenses by a large amount, it implies that residents are being charged more than is necessary for the service they get.
2. Reserve Fund for Future Health Care. Each year new residents pay an entry fee, part of which is tax-exempt because it is a pre-payment for future medical care. Also, every independent living resident with a Type A contract pays a monthly fee, part of which is tax-exempt because it is also intended to be reserved for future medical care. Residents need to know where the resulting accumulated funds appear in financial statements, and what criteria are used to determine the adequacy of the Reserve Fund for Future Health Care.
3. Reserve Fund for Facilities Renewal and Replacement. Any organization which maintains buildings and grounds which are necessary for its operations requires a planned facilities renewal and replacement budgeting process. Replacing roofs, renewing the HVAC system, upgrading windows, bringing an auditorium up to current standards in terms of technology, are all expenses which occur on a much different cycle than expenses in the Operating Budget in item 1 above. Unless money is set aside every year in anticipation of an eventually needed roof replacement, for example, a budgetary crisis occurs when the roof gives way and needs to be replaced “by surprise.” Residents need to know where in financial statements the Reserve Fund for Facilities Renewal and Replacement appear, and what criteria are used to determine its adequacy.
4. Liens on Reserve Funds. There are two groups of people who lend money to Pennswood Village. One group, bond holders, expect to be paid back eventually with cash plus interest; the other group, residents, lend money to the organization in the form of entry fees and monthly fees in excess of the cost of the day-to-day services they receive. Bond holders typically lend funds for new buildings. Residents typically lend money for the reserve funds described above, which they expect to be “repaid” in the form of future service. Residents need to know the extent to which the funds held in reserve for their future health care and for facilities renewal and replacement are “encumbered” by having been used as collateral to guarantee loans from bond-holders. Residents, as lenders, are “unsecured creditors.” In case of trouble their claims on the community’s funds come last, after all other creditors have been satisfied.

Each resident enters into a long-term contract with Pennswood Village. It is in the nature of this contract that neither party knows how long it will last. Some people may live three years or less, others will live for twenty years or more. It is also in the nature of this contract that residents make large payments at the beginning of the period, in the form of entrance fees, while the CCRC provides the high cost deliverables – nursing care, memory care, etc. – near the end of the contract period. It is obviously a temptation to managers to make the present look better by nibbling at the funds intended for the high cost deliverables due in the future, leaving a headache for their successors. When well-established CCRCs end up in trouble, such incremental use of resources intended for future health care or future facilities renewal and replacement in order to ease present financial strains is usually the cause. Although such overuse might be small in a given year, it can become an addictive habit. It is obviously important that residents keep abreast of the balance struck among the factors above in the day-to-day operation of their CCRC.

In addressing all these issues, it is important not to make the easy choice, but the right choice.

Daniel A. Seeger
February 25, 2023

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. in the Blue Room.

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