Scrapped plan to sell nursing home cost $93K
The potential sale of the Berks Heim nursing home cost Berks County taxpayers about $93,000.
The county recently turned over financial records requested by MediaNews Group showing how much the county paid outside firms to complete work in the now-abandoned sale of the county-owned nursing home.
Officials had previously released information in May revealing some of those costs, but some key information was missing at that point.
County Solicitor Christine M. Sadler said the bill from law firm Stevens & Lee, which led the search for potential buyers, was still being prepared because the county had taken issue with the rate at which it was initially billed for work.
That bill, modified to reflect the new rate, was delivered to her office last month. It detailed how the $11,941 owed by the county was accrued from February 2018 through March 2019.
Facing a projected $18 million deficit over the next 10 years, the county commissioners hired Reading-based Stevens & Lee in January 2018. The contract guaranteed the firm would earn at least $600,000 and no more than a 2.5% commission on any sale of the Heim.
It did not, however, set the fee it would charge if the county decided to scrap the sale process. The firm was in the process of setting up tours of the facility when the process was halted this spring.
The financial records previously provided by the county showed how much the county has spent on professional services to devise a plan to carve up the tract on which the Heim sits. Those expenses had amounted to just over $81,000.
The county has paid Great Valley Consultants in Wyomissing nearly $79,450 to produce a subdivision plan that establishes two new parcels on the property along Welfare Road in Bern Township. The Wyomissing law firm of Masano Bradley had been paid about $1,830 to handle the
legal issues in that process.
The plan to divide the property, which local philanthropist William W. Essick donated to the county more than 90 years ago, was granted conditional approval by Bern Township supervisors in July.