Ives Hill Retirement Community board members have agreed to go to in-house management, instead of contracting through the Adirondack Mennonite Retirement Community.

That means current manager Dianne L. Ward will be replaced by Donna S. MacPherson by week’s end.

Board President Kerry A. Roberge said members from both Ives Hill and the Adirondack Mennonite Retirement Community were involved in management shift discussions.

“We leased (Dianne’s) services through them,” Mr. Roberge said when reached by telephone Tuesday. “We felt we needed to go in-house with management. Dianne was with us through AMRC from the beginning, since the late 1990s. She was not an employee of Ives; she was a consultant provided through AMRC.”

Until now, Mr. Roberge said, Ives Hill’s needs have been fulfilled and served well. As the organization and long-term care continues to grow in Jefferson County, Mr. Roberge said, Ives Hill having its own manager just made sense.

“I think it’s a positive step we’re making,” he said. “We appreciate the services of Dianne Ward up until now.”

Ms. Ward was unavailable for comment Tuesday, as she was out of the office.

Mr. Roberge said the board had planned on finalizing information during a meeting Thursday, but Ms. Ward issued a letter to Ives Hill Retirement Community residents a few days ago. The board was made aware of the letter after the fact.

Meanwhile, Mr. Roberge said, he thinks Mrs. MacPherson will settle nicely into the management position, given her experience. Mrs. MacPherson was most recently Jefferson Rehabilitation Center’s director of habilitative services. She also wore many other hats at that nonprofit organization.

Prior to her JRC career, Mrs. MacPherson was interim administrator of Franklin County Nursing Home, Malone. She was administrator at Samaritan Keep Home from 1998 to 2005. She was facility director at Samaritan Keep and a registered nurse at E.J. Noble Hospital, now River Hospital, Alexandria Bay.

“I think she’ll bring a great deal of activities and those things for a good quality of life of residents,” Mr. Roberge said. “She’ll be overseeing all our employees and managing and overseeing our general operations. She’ll be involved with residents, their activities and their needs.”

Despite the management shift, Mr. Roberge said, a good relationship remains between the Ives Hill and Adirondack Mennonite retirement communities. Representatives from the Adirondack Mennonite Retirement Community also sit on the Ives Hill Retirement Community board of directors.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer