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June 1, 2015 • $1.00
CLASS OF 2015
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Marengo Community High School graduates focus on each part of bigger picture / A3
HERALD RALD
NWHerald.com
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REPLACING THE BOOMERS McHenry County prepares for looming nursing shortage
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Space study moves forward 2nd phase looks at optimizing space at MCC By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Registered nurse Caitlyn Gatchell of Round Lake gets medicine for a patient Friday while working at Centegra Hospital in McHenry. Illinois is headed for a nursing shortage as many baby boomers retire, a new study from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation shows.
By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – With about half of their nurses approaching age 50, Centegra Health System leaders are bracing for a nursing shortage that a new study suggests looms across the entire state. The 2014 Illinois Registered Nurse Survey from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation included voluntary responses from nearly 53,000 nurses, accounting for 30 percent of the nurse population in Illinois. Of the nurses surveyed, one-third age 55 or older – about 6,400 nurses – plan to retire in the next five years. In McHenry County, hospital and education leaders have heightened efforts to meet the local gap. Steve Osborne, the nurse recruiter for Centegra, said the looming shortage is a result of baby boomers staying in the nursing field and staving off retirement through the country’s recent economic downturn. He said the median age for the roughly 1,000 nurses who work for
“I think it’s inevitable. ... The baby boomers are aging. We have the need for additional individuals, and I think we are trying to add to that workforce in the best way possible.” Amy Maxeiner McHenry County College’s executive dean of math, sciences and health professions Centegra is 44. “One of the major things we really need to embrace is new graduates,” Osborne said. “We’re trying to get the message out to the community that this is a great profession.” It’s a profession, he said, that would net a new graduate a $60,000 salary. Osborne said he tries to make that point clear to thousands of students who visit through career fairs and partnerships with local school districts and colleges. Of all the health system’s recruits, half are new graduates and half are experienced nurses, he said. McHenry County College graduated about 20 nurses a year until 2014 when 35 students graduated
with associate degrees of applied science in nursing, said Amy Maxeiner, the executive dean of mathematics, sciences and health professions. In 2012, the college added a second cohort of nursing classes, doubling the college’s capacity for nursing students. Maxeiner said college officials brought the total number of nursing slots to 48 in response to the predicted nursing crunch. “I think it’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. The baby boomers are aging,” Maxeiner said. “We have the need for additional individuals, and I think we are trying to add to that workforce in the best way possible.” But recent graduates come with
some restrictions. State officials said the wave of retirements could leave voids in specialties such as psychiatric, home health and other nursing specialties. They cited a lack of nurses ages 25 to 35 pursuing advanced nursing degrees. At Centegra, Osborne said officials have concerns about filling roles in surgical services. Surgical services nursing is a specialty that takes a year-long orientation, nearly four-times as long as less specialized nursing, he said. Once students graduate from McHenry County College, they could pursue a specialization while working or get a bachelor’s or advanced degree that would prepare them to work in a specialized field, Maxeiner said. Nurses who land a career in surgical services or behavioral health tend to stay, Osborne said, leading to the median age in those areas to hover closer to 50. “The good news is people don’t like to leave,” Osborne said. “The bad news is we’re getting older.”
CRYSTAL LAKE – McHenry County College is moving ahead with the second part of a space utilization study despite some concerns that the underlying conclusions don’t take enrollment projections into consideration. The Board of Trustees came to a consensus at its meeting Thursday evening to move ahead with the second phase, which will lay out options on what the college could do to optimize its space and meet the needs of its programs and other functions. The report will likely include a combination of new building and reutilization of existing space, said Dominick Demonica with Demonica Kemper Architects. It will look at how the college can get more use out of some of its classrooms, in particular the smallest and largest rooms. The firm would tentatively come back to the board in October with its results. The work will rely on a study presented last week that concluded the college doesn’t have enough student, athletic and physical education and open laboratory spaces. The fact that the study did not use elementary and secondary enrollment numbers in determining future needs gave Board Secretary Chris Jenner heartburn, he said, even if the study assumes minimal growth. Trustee Karen Tirio agreed with his concerns, adding that perhaps the board should look at making what the college has “better, not necessarily bigger.” The enrollment projections had been looked at as a part of the original study, Demonica said. The projections ultimately were not used to determine future needs because the growth was minimal and was primarily offset by the decline in space needs that comes with a growth in enrollment for online course.
See MCC, page A7
Rift between Rauner, Dems intensifies after budget talks fail By SARA BURNETT and JOHN O’CONNOR The Associated Press SPRINGFIELD –The increasingly nasty feud between Gov. Bruce Rauner and majority Democrats is about to spill from the Illinois statehouse to voters’ mailboxes and TVs, as the rookie Republican unleashes a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against lawmakers he claims are intransigent over the state budget and his political agenda.
Inside Oakwood Hills-inspired Open Meetings Act reform passes House. PAGE A3
The entrenched, more experienced Democratic leaders – who said they were warned by Rauner of the coming campaign – began pushing back Sunday. Senate President John Cullerton said GOP lawmakers are being “lured away by the siren song of Gov.
Rauner’s campaign cash,” hindering compromise. “We find ourselves trying to work with a governor who continues to run campaigns rather than the state that elected him,” Bruce Rauner the Chicago Democrat said. “Rather than roll up your sleeves and work on solutions, he’s dictating demands and threatening
those who defy him.” Majority Democrats in the General Assembly approved a $36.3 billion spending plan they said preserves Rauner-proposed cuts to essential programs. They John Cullerton acknowledge it’s $3 billion short on revenue and want Rauner to agree to a tax increase. A solemn Rauner spoke to
reporters Sunday evening as the session officially came to an end, calling that plan “phony” and warning of a “rough summer,” but reiterating his pledge to meet anywhere, Michael any day to reMadigan solve the differences. He gave no ground on his insistence that Chicago Democrats Cullerton and House
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Huntley, McHenry softball reach sectional in different ways / B1
Retiring Ringwood Primary principal talks about her years with the district / A3
Watchdog says ex-Nazis got $20.2M in U.S. benefits / A6
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Speaker Michael Madigan take up his proposed changes, including a property tax freeze and less-costly workers’ compensation insurance for employers, which he said would produce more state revenue by making Illinois more competitive. He derided the notion that Democrats’ spending push reflects a desire to help the middle class. “They are not about the middle class. They are about the political class in Illinois,”
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See BUDGET, page A8