Benjamin Healthcare Center receivership responds to allegations of mismanagement

Receivership staff at the Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center responded to allegations of financial mismanagement at a hearing about the facility’s receivership, April 16.

In a hearing that lasted for a little more than an hour, attorneys representing the receivership at the Mission Hill nursing home and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office had the chance to call witnesses in an attempt to clarify the facts around allegations raised in a series of three documents handed to the court in the last month.

Those documents — two letters from Delicia Mark, the center’s administrator and a so-called amicus brief from a collection of anonymous staff members at the Edgar Benjamin — raised allegations of financial mismanagement by staff of the receivership who was brought in by a court order last April to address, in part, concerns of financial mismanagement from the center’s prior administration.

The center’s former administrator, Tony Francis is now facing a civil lawsuit for allegedly stealing and embezzling over $3 million from the facility.

In signed affidavits filed with the court on May 1, Joseph Feaster, the center’s receiver, and Dianne Wilkerson, who serves as his executive assistant, denied allegations of wrongdoing.

Superior Court Justice Christopher Belezos, who presided over the hearing, limited the scope of his inquiry to the issues of financial mismanagement and Feaster’s ability to continue in his role as receiver, allegations raised in the documents.

“The only question before me today — and I’m going to tell you up-front, it’s going to be a mighty stretch — the only question before me today is whether there’s a question to receiver Feaster’s suitability to remain as receiver, and I haven’t heard anything from the commonwealth requesting that he be removed,” he said.

But tackling questions around that narrow scope of issues was often tense.

Belezos often had to play a role akin to that of a terse parent, reminding all parties to stick to the narrow focus he had set for the evidentiary hearing and to play nice with each other.

“These allegations are significant and worthy of the court’s attention, but the court is not going to lose sight of what’s really in play,” he said during the hearing, pointing to the long-term goal of determining if the facility can stay open.

Among the allegations raised were claims that the hiring of some staff and contractors at the facility was due to nepotism.

Lawyers from the attorney general’s office pressed Wilkerson on the hiring of RNS Services, a facilities services company that two of her sons work at and manage, as well as the employment of her grandson as a member of the security staff at the building and later an intern working with human resources and payroll.

RNS Services was first hired to plow during a flash snowstorm, Dec. 20, while the center was celebrating its holiday party. Wilkerson said that both Feaster and Mark asked her to find someone to clear out the parking lot on short notice, so staff could leave, and the next shift could park.

Following that one-time engagement, she said, she told RNS Services that if they wanted to continue working with the Edgar Benjamin, they’d have to submit a bid — a step she said the facility doesn’t normally take, but she insisted on to head off allegations of wrongdoing.

She said she reached out to two other companies and received one other bid back. Of the two, RNS Services offered a lower bid.

Regarding her grandson, Wilkerson said he had initially been hired by the security firm that works for the Edgar Benjamin, not by the center itself. At the prompting of the director of nursing, he was encouraged to start working with the center’s human resources and payroll team, given his degree in business and accounting.

The documents allege that he has a write-up for improperly granting himself overtime pay. Wilkerson said that the write-up does not exist.

During Wilkerson’s testimony, Valerie Frias, deputy director of the attorney general’s Elder Justice Unit, asked if Wilkerson, at any point, considered the hiring of her family members — including one member only days after she was hired last spring — an appearance of a conflict of interest.

“No, I did not,” Wilkerson said.

Frias also pursued questions about Wilkerson’s own employment at the facility, where she receives a salary of $82 per hour and said she tends to work 90 hours per week, alongside receiving the regular benefits of an employee at the center, such as health insurance, vacation pay and sick time.

The costs incurred by the receivership have been a sticking point for attorneys representing the commonwealth, who have suggested the state should not have to pay for receivership costs, alongside accounting and legal fees.

Feaster has requested that the state help support those costs through advances from MassHealth; the commonwealth has argued, in turn, that under the law permitting the creation of a receivership, those costs are to be paid from the facility funds, something that Feaster has said would put the center in a tough position financially.

In December, Justice Anthony Campos instructed the state to continue advancing the funds but required Feaster to provide more in-depth documentation of the center’s finances.

Last month, in response to a state request to modify that earlier decision, Belezos paused the ruling but left the state on the hook for any requests for advances that had already been filed. Mary Freeley, assistant attorney general and director of the office’s Elder Justice Unit, said the attorney general’s office intends to appeal that initial decision, a step it must take by May 2. 

The documents also alleged that leadership under Feaster and Wilkerson had created a hostile work environment, but Belezos declined to include those claims in the hearing.

“Those are internal matters, which I’m in no position to address today,” he said.

But his guidelines didn’t always stop attorneys from trying to pursue those matters anyway. The attorney general’s office was ready to — but ultimately didn’t — call Lena Rodriguez, vice president for long-term care at SEIU 1199, the union that represents much of the staff at the Edgar Benjamin, to attest to the atmosphere at a staff meeting Feaster and Wilkerson called in the immediate aftermath of the submission of the documents.

That staff meeting, Freeley suggested, might have made staff members feel at risk in their roles if they spoke out.

“Can you understand that staff members at the Benjamin might feel intimidated or that their voices might be chilled for speaking out after such a meeting?” Freeley asked.

Feaster, however, said that the meeting, which was to present his and Wilkerson’s response to the allegations, was not meant to intimidate and that no employees have left or faced any retaliation.

“They’re still continuing to work there and there’s been no actions taken against any employees,” he said. “How people feel is one thing. The actions that are taken are another.”

The hearing also briefly addressed some financial factors impacting the Edgar Benjamin. In the last hearing, May 2, Belezos raised questions about a mention in a financial document about a potential mortgage on the facility, which has long been reported as mortgage-free.

In documentation filed with the court May 14, attorneys for the receivership confirmed that there is no mortgage, and that the center owns the building and the land it stands on.

Also in question is the number of licensed beds the center has. Feaster has long reported the number at 91 beds, but at the last hearing, the state suggested those numbers were underreported.

An affidavit from Stephen Davis, director of the Department of Public Health’s Division of Health Care Facility Licensure and Certification, filed with the court May 2, attested that the center actually had 122 licensed beds under COVID-19-era restrictions that capped room occupancies at no more than two beds. It could hold 164 licensed beds in total if it requested a waiver to that policy, which would allow some three- and four-bed rooms.

Those financial details, as well as the center’s future prospects, are set to be the center of attention when the receivership returns to court next month. Its next status conference is scheduled for May 15.

Likely to be a major part of that discussion is the prospect of an outside company or organization coming to buy out the facility — something Feaster said will likely be necessary without a major infusion of cash.

A budget compiled by Mark projected monthly losses for the center ranging from just under $360,000 in March to nearly $450,000 in December. The total loss for March through December is projected to clock in above $4.2 million.

While Feaster, similarly, has not presented a rosy outlook for the center’s finances, in a signal of long-stewing conflict between himself and Mark, he called the financial report “unverified” and distanced himself from the numbers within.

Feaster said that at least eight bidders will come to the facility April 24, with bids due by May 7.

In an interview, he said he doesn’t know how that process will shake out.  For example, he suggested that a buyer could be either for-profit or non-profit, but that he intends to make sure that whoever takes over the facility will have to keep the name of “Edgar P. Benjamin” and will have to keep operating as a nursing facility, rather than reselling it to a developer.

“I don’t want a situation where someone gets it, and the next thing you know, they’re selling the property,” he said.

However, during the court proceedings, Freeley pointed out that the sale of a charitable asset to a for-profit company requires a more complex process.

And the center’s leadership may soon be in flux. During the hearing, Belezos said that under his reading of state law, Mark was not entitled to whistleblower protections — something the attorney general’s office had previously requested. He instructed Freeley and Frias to let him know if they disagreed.

Feaster, who has expressed dissatisfaction with how Mark has handled the role of administrator, declined to comment on whether he was planning to replace Mark, following Belezos’ comments. But in his affidavit filed April 1, he said he was, at the time, keeping her in the role only to avoid claims that any termination was retaliatory.