BENTONVILLE -- A new facility to replace the Fayetteville Veterans Home could open in Benton County as soon as 2026, the Arkansas Veterans Commission was told Tuesday.
Whether those plans develop depends on getting a federal grant for $30 million of the proposed 96-bed nursing home facility's $45 million cost. The state wanted $15 million for such a facility in the fiscal session of the Legislature earlier this year. The Walton Family Foundation donated 60 acres of land last year at the intersection of Stoney Brook Road and Rainbow Road in Rogers to the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs for such a facility.
"It would be great for Benton County, but this would be a regional facility to serve veterans, just like the Fayetteville home is," said Benton County Judge Barry Moehring, who attended Tuesday's meeting.
Replacing an existing facility rather than building an additional one increases the chances of getting the grant from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, state Secretary of Veterans Affairs Nathaniel Todd said after the commission meeting at the Benton County Courthouse Annex.
Criteria used by the federal agency in awarding such grants favors replacement of older facilities with better ones over adding facilities, he said. The donation of land and the willingness of the state to cover one-third of the construction cost also favor the state's application, he said.
The lease on the Fayetteville home expires in 2026. The 90-bed facility there is in a wing of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest campus -- the former site of Washington Regional Medical Center. The site was the best available when the home opened in 2006, but the building was never designed to be a nursing home, Todd said. For instance, the six-story building is difficult to move around in for residents, especially in case of an emergency. The facility also does not have its own kitchen.
The department reviewed the option of renovating the current site but decided the best choice would be to build a new facility designed from the outset as a nursing home, Todd said.
Besides facility problems, the current site in Fayetteville suffers problems with staffing, the commission was told.
"There's not a nurse here today who worked here in 2021," Fayetteville home administrator Buster McCall told the commission via audio link.
Turnover and staff shortages, an incident earlier this year in which a resident left the facility without supervision and a failure to file all the required reports on staffing to federal agencies resulted recently in a one-star rating on a five-star scale done by federal Medicaid regulators, the commission was told.
The state seeks proposals from private firms that manage veterans homes to take over the administration of the Fayetteville facility. The Fayetteville site is managed directly by the state Veterans Department. Commission member Paul Mlakar of Alma, who is chairman of the committee seeking a management company, told the commission he expects two companies to submit bids that are due July 27.
"These are not lowest-bid contracts," he said.
Most government contracts go to the the lowest bidder who meets minimum standards, but the department is allowed to consider other factors such as prior success in nursing home management. The selection method is known as the most advantageous proposal procedure.
Companies that manage more than one or two veterans homes have advantages of scale in personnel management, record-keeping and other business operations, Todd said. The state seeks a four-year contract with a management company. That way the department could decide whether to renew its contract before moving in to the new Benton County site if it becomes available, he said.
Lonnie Young of the Northwest Arkansas Marine Corps League also attended Tuesday's meeting. He expressed his concern for the staff at the Fayetteville Veterans Home, saying they needed priority in hiring by a private company taking over the operation.
Benton County is home to almost 16,000 veterans, Leigh Howerton, a representative of the Benton County Veterans Services office, told the commission.
The story has been updated to correct a street name.