May 30, 2026
VIROQUA, Wis. – After years of red ink, emergency meetings and talk of selling or closing Vernon County’s nursing home and assisted living facility, recent reports show a campus that appears to have turned the corner financially, even as auditors are still combing the books and taxpayers remain on the hook for buildings, buses and big ticket repairs.
County reports this spring and summer show Vernon Manor and its sister assisted living facility, Vernon Acres, posting what appear to be their first sustained operating surpluses since the county turned day to day management over to Bethany St. Joseph Corporation of La Crosse, known locally as BSJ.
At the same time, officials are warning residents that an audit of the first full year under BSJ is still underway, that some of the most eye catching profit figures are unaudited and subject to adjustment, and that the county will continue to shoulder major capital costs such as generator upgrades, parking lot work and a recently approved replacement for the aging resident bus.
Financial picture flips from loss to surplus
At a January Finance Committee meeting, County Administrator Cassie Hanan told supervisors that the Vernon Manor Board of Trustees had just reviewed unaudited year end numbers that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago.
She said the nursing home, long seen as a chronic money loser, was suddenly showing a profit approaching one million dollars, while Vernon Acres, which had been projected to lose money, was now in the black.
Hanan summarized the turnaround with a mix of enthusiasm and caution.
“What was presented at Board of Trustees last Friday (Jan. 9, 2026) was that Vernon Manor was showing a profit of almost $900,000 and Vernon Acres maybe, I think it was like $89,000,” said Hanan. “If you looked at the trends for Vernon Acres, it looks like Vernon Acres to the end of the year was set to lose about $200,000 and Vernon Manor was going to be profitable.”
On May 8, the Vernon Manor Board of Trustees were presented update numbers. A preliminary 2025 year end report showed Vernon Manor with net income of roughly $1.15 million dollars and Vernon Acres with about $268,000 dollars in income, both still unaudited and still subject to corporate allocations and audit adjustments.
Administrator Hailey Jackson told trustees that those numbers reflect deliberate efforts to right size staffing to match census and to squeeze down what had once been a heavy dependence on expensive agency nurses and certified nursing assistants.
She described the basic strategy for the board.
“I know some one of my big focuses is on our staffing numbers with our census,” said Jackson. “I do not want too many staff in the building. Right now our census is low, so I have been working to make sure that we are not over staffing the building so that we are spending more on staffing than income.”
Jackson said agency use is now a fraction of what it used to be.
“We have reduced agency,” said Jackson. “We are still using some. We have one nurse on nights and we have a nurse just for our weekends right now, and then we have two on evenings for our CNAs, but that is all we are using.”
Finance Director Anne Lockyer has urged committees to see the new figures as promising but not final. She told the Finance Committee she is relying on revenue numbers she trusts while waiting for BSJ and the auditors to nail down expenses and allocations for the first year of the new system.
Lockyer said she is still gathering data but “these are good revenue numbers. It is looking positive for both of them.”
Years of red ink and the decision to hand over management
The brighter reports mark a sharp change from the debate that dominated county meetings in the years leading up to the BSJ contract. Finance records and board minutes show Vernon Manor and Vernon Acres drawing as much as $3.5 million dollars from the county’s general fund over recent years, money advanced to cover operating losses and cash shortfalls as accounts receivable piled up.
Hanan told supervisors the situation had become unsustainable even before the pandemic and statewide workforce crisis made matters worse.
She summed up those concerns when she briefed the board on the study that led to the BSJ deal.
“There were significant budgetary concerns,” said Hanan. “To date Vernon Manor and Vernon Acres owe the general fund about $3.4 million, and board members were asking how we could keep shouldering that without a clear plan to turn things around.”
Supervisors explored three main paths. One was to sell the campus outright to a private operator. Another was to bring in an outside company under a management agreement while the county kept ownership. The third was to try to fix the problems internally with policy changes and new staff.
While that feasibility work was underway, Bethany St. Joseph approached the county about a possible management contract. The idea gained traction with supervisors who wanted to keep Vernon Manor under public ownership but doubted the county could fix long running staffing and billing problems on its own.
Hanan told board members that BSJ offered a middle ground.
“We had decided to explore whether we should sell, change the footprint or seek a management agreement,” said Hanan. “When Bethany St. Joe approached us, it seemed like a middle ground that could preserve local control while bringing in people who do this every day.”
In a key County Board debate in late 2024, BSJ chief executive officer Kim Gochanour laid out the nonprofit’s pitch. She said the corporation’s scale, nonprofit structure and experience running other rural facilities in Westby and Galesville could bring stability that the county had struggled to achieve on its own.
She framed the value of a larger nonprofit system for supervisors.
“We have a lot of successful years of management with government entities,” said Gochanour. “We reinvest in the buildings and in our staff instead of paying shareholders, and that gives us room to offer competitive wages and still keep our facilities sustainable.”
Gochanour pointed to BSJ’s bulk purchasing power and internal nurse career ladder as examples of how a regional system can recruit staff and hold down costs.
“Because we have several facilities and community campuses we get better pricing on food, pharmacy, supplies and even health insurance,” said Gochanour. “When you put Vernon Manor and Vernon Acres into that pool there are immediate opportunities to renegotiate contracts and bring down costs without cutting care.”
Under the agreement the county ultimately approved, Vernon County kept ownership of the buildings and licenses while BSJ took over operations, hiring and billing in exchange for a management fee and a share of any year end surplus. Most remaining profit flows back to the county.
Supervisor Bruce Kilmer, chair of the Vernon Manor Board of Trustees, told colleagues that structure helped convince him the deal could benefit both taxpayers and residents.
“If there is a profit at the end of the year it does not go to shareholders in another state,” said Kilmer. “It goes back to the county and into the buildings and the people who live and work there.”
Staffing stabilizes after heavy reliance on agency nurses
Behind the old losses was a stubborn staffing problem. In meeting after meeting before the handoff, county officials described a nursing home and assisted living operation that simply could not hire enough local certified nursing assistants and nurses at county wage rates.
With vacant positions and state staffing standards to meet, Vernon Manor leaned heavily on traveling nurses and outside agencies. Those contracts brought in caregivers, but at hourly rates that could be double what regular county employees earned, and often with added overtime and housing stipends layered on top. At the peak the county was paying as high $60 and hour for outside help and cost almost $1 million a year.
Gochanour told supervisors that problem was common across Wisconsin, but especially painful in county run homes.
“Staffing has been a challenge across all nursing homes in Wisconsin for a number of years,” said Gochanour. “When you cannot recruit enough local staff, you end up hiring from agencies and that drives up your operating costs very quickly.”
The county did eventually raise wages at Vernon Manor in an effort to compete, but that came while agency contracts were still in place, meaning the facility was paying more without immediately shedding its most expensive shifts.
Supervisors were told that in some years labor costs approached five million dollars, and that the county’s obligation to match Wisconsin Retirement System contributions for eligible staff added another layer of expense.
Hanan explained that burden for the board.
“The retirement contribution is huge,” said Hanan. “When you look at a payroll in the millions, that employer match alone adds up very quickly for a facility that has been running in the red.”
Under BSJ, the staffing picture has changed, though Jackson has been clear that hiring remains a daily challenge. She told trustees that the facility now has only four agency staff in the building and is using new pipelines, including the Quality CNA program and an international recruiter, to bring in longer term employees.
She outlined that mix in a recent report.
“We currently have four agency staff still in the building, which is two nurses and two CNAs,” said Jackson. “We recently hired another RCA, so she will be going through the Quality CNA program. We also have been working with Flint, which is they recruit from overseas, and they would come to work with us and they have to stay three years in order to get their visa to stay here. So, we have hired two so far through them and they have been working out really great as well.”
At Vernon Acres, Jackson said there are currently no open positions, a notable shift from the years when both buildings struggled to keep even basic support roles filled.
“At Vernon Acres we do not have any open positions right now and we have a new director in place,” said Jackson. “The focus there is on building community and bringing people into the building so those apartments are full and stable.”
Census improves and accounts receivable come down
Census, another long running sore spot, has also moved in the right direction. Jackson told trustees that Vernon Manor, which budgeted for 60 residents, has been running in the mid 40s but is seeing new admissions and a stronger flow of Medicare rehab patients than in the leanest years.
She described the current mix this spring.
“For Vernon Manor, our census is currently at 45,” said Jackson. “We are budgeted for 60. We have two Medicare residents currently, but we are taking two admissions today and we have two planned for Monday. We have quite a few referrals we are going over, so we are hoping to get that raised very soon.”
Vernon Acres has 20 tenants out of 29 budgeted apartments and is working to rebuild after leadership changes.
“For Vernon Acres, they are at 20,” Jackson said. “They are budgeted for 29. They have seven inclusive and 13 self pay, but they have one moving in today and then they have one planned to move in at the end of the month on the 29th. We also went to a senior fair earlier this week, hopefully trying to just get people, like, our name, people in the door.”
On the financial operations side, one of the most persistent problems under county management was accounts receivable. Bills to Medicaid, Medicare, insurers and residents went out slowly and payments came in late, sometimes tying up hundreds of thousands of dollars and obscuring the true financial picture. That situation appears to have been largely corrected according to BSJ management, but more precise numbers will likely be available one the yearly audit is delivered to the county.
County will still pay for some infrastructure costs
Even though BSJ has taken on the management of the facility including those employee costs, the county is still required to maintain the facility and provide other services not included in the agreement. The county recently replaced the facilities mini-bus at a cost of around $91,000 and they are in the process of installing a backup generator in conjunction with other county buildings.
Another potential large capital project related that has been a problem for the facility may get take care of thanks to a state grant.
In March of 2026, Vernon County Community Development Director Amy Oliver officially applied for the Wisconsin Innovation Grant through the state Department of Revenue (DOR) to help fund capital improvements like the Vernon Manor parking lot.
The grant application is directly tied to the county’s recent decision to hand over management to BSJ. Oliver explained to the Board of Trustees during their May meeting that the state uses a specific formula to determine the grant amount based on the services the county transferred under that management agreement. While earlier estimates from county officials had the grant pegged at around $75,000 annually the final submitted numbers came in higher.
“In a nutshell if we’re awarded this funding the county will get $98,121 each year over five years,” said Oliver. “And that per the management agreement with BSJ needs to be deposited into Vernon Manor – Acres Enterprise Fund and needs to be earmarked for capital improvement projects so the parking lot would qualify”.
Oliver said the county is currently in a holding pattern waiting for the state’s final decision.
“We should hear between now and mid June if we are receiving this award,” said Oliver. “And if we do my contact at the DOR said last week that first payments are expected or the 2026 payment is expected to be sent to by June 30”
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