Sullivan County was holding a Sept. 1 job fair for workers being laid off at the county’s Adult Care Center, also known as the Care Center at Sunset Lake, that is being closed by the end of the year. The job fair was at the center on Sunset Lake Road in Liberty.
The county has been losing about $3.5 million a year on the operation of the center, which produced annual revenue of just over $14 million for Fiscal Year 2025. The center has been open for about 30 years.
“Care Center staff are working tirelessly to find new homes for residents under their care, and we want to be sure to find new employment opportunities for them when their jobs are complete,” said Sullivan County Manager Joshua Potosek. “They have talents and skills that are in high demand across the region, as evidenced by the number of potential employers who’ve already signed up to be at the job fair.”
Some participants in the job fair included: Achieve Rehabilitation and Nursing; ARC of Greater Hudson Valley; The Center for Discovery; New Hope Community; Roscoe Rehabilitation and Nursing Center; Valley View Center; A&T Healthcare; and Always Compassionate Health.
The New York State Department of Health has approved the county’s closure plan. There currently are 93 long-term residents and 86 employees at the Adult Care Center. The county promises that no resident will be left without a skilled-care option. Where possible, county employees at the facility will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other county jobs.
“Sullivan County, like so many other counties around the state and nation have already determined, simply can no longer afford to run a nursing home,” Potosek said. “The costs are tremendous, the reimbursements insufficient, the staffing challenges neverending, and the requirements always increasing. Legislators past and present tried to find solutions: first a sale, then a lease, then a consulting agreement. None bore fruit, and taxpayers continued to subsidize a costly, aging facility.”
Potosek said that he did not yet know what will happen with the physical facility.
Nadia Rajsz, chair of the Sullivan Legislature said, “This is not something the county wanted to do, but our challenging finances and the lack of ability to transfer operations to our consulting firm has left us no choice but to initiate the closure process. The majority of my colleagues and I agreed that taxpayers cannot afford to continue the costly operation of the Care Center while facing enormous revenue losses and quickly increasing costs throughout county government.”
