The Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is starting 2014 in the red, but the bottom line isn’t as low as expected.

For the first three months of the year, Sunnyview had a $185,550 deficit. The nursing home was budgeted to lose $279,262 for the same period.

Boosting Sunnyview finances in March was a $140,000 bonus awarded by state Medical Assistance for county-owned facilities making progress in treating people receiving state aid.

Sunnyview administrator Sue Murray said most of that bonus was placed under March’s finances.

The Butler County-owned nursing home is in the process of being privatized.

County officials maintain Sunnyview’s annual deficit is a contributing factor to its sale to the Lakewood, N.J., company Investment 360 for $20.4 million.

However, county Commissioner Bill McCarrier, board chairman, pointed out the deficit is only part of the rationale behind the Sunnyview sale.

“I believe that counties are not in a position to operate nursing homes,” McCarrier said.

McCarrier said corporations have the means, including buying power, to more efficiently run health care facilities.

Although Sunnyview was projected to have a more than $1 million deficit for 2014, that number would be no lower than $742,192 if the first three month’s finances were indicative for the year.

Commissioner Dale Pinkerton agreed a sale was unavoidable.

Pinkerton was part of the previous board that considered Sunnyview’s future six years ago.

But if the county sold the nursing home then, it would have been obligated to repay part of a $6 million grant awarded through the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania that was used to fund renovations.

Pinkerton said Sunnyview’s fiscal state was a concern then and now.

“It really hasn’t gotten any better,” he said.

Pinkerton said Investment 360 is proving McCarrier’s point by already determining ways to cut costs, such as being charged for the weight of laundry.

He said paying for the weight of dry, not wet, laundry would save $100,000 annually.

Before March, the 2014 deficit was higher than projected. Through February, the losses ballooned to $269,047, up from the budgeted $185,294.

Murray said expenses were higher in the first two months because employees chose retirement in the face of the pending sale.

According to county controller records, a total of five workers retired in December and January, which would have impacted January and February finances.

Murray said all owed vacation and sick time was paid at once, which contributed to nursing services being $75,000 higher than budgeted, or $1.8 million.

“It would be all one lump sum,” she said about the payouts.

Commissioner Jim Eckstein, the sole board member opposing the sale, said the financial upswing didn’t surprise him.

“I didn’t think Sunnyview needed to be sold in the first place,” Eckstein said.

He claimed the finances would have kept moving in the right direction had the county retained ownership.

If Sunnyview was not sold and lost $1 million for 2014, the county would have absorbed $838,452 of that deficit.

The deficit includes indirect costs the county charged Sunnyview for time spent by government center staff on nursing home issues.

According to Sunnyview records, indirect costs totaled $78,667 for the first three months.

Also added to the deficit were $62,500 in building depreciation and $2,500 in interest on prior borrowing.

The total loss from operations alone was $41,883, down from the budgeted $134,262.

For March, Sunnyview made a $109,727 operational profit with a net profit of $61,394.