The days seem to be jumbling together lately. But, there’s been good things happening. For instance, our oldest son James and his family made a very quick trip out here so they could spend a little bit of time with dad. Its a choice similar to the one we made when Nina’s father was fading quickly. I was working in Japan and we could only make one trip home for him … either to spend some time with him before he died or to attend the funeral. We choose to spend some time with him before he died and that has turned out to be a good choice. Dad certainly appreciated their visit and recognized them. He was lucid for a time while they were there which is definitely a blessing.

Dad was a bit better today than the past few days. As noted in an earlier post (sent from my iPhone as we were driving home from the nursing home), he was up, dressed, and did some physical therapy today. That was all goodness.

He’s not getting better, however. He just has an occasional “good” day mixed into more and more “not-so-good” days. He definitely wants to go home, but that’s not in the cards for him, either.

Mother and I spent some time at the Simms Funeral Home in Soda Springs this afternoon. Simms will be handling the funeral when dad dies. We had a couple of purposes for going over there today. First, we wanted to get a good estimate of all the costs associated with dad’s funeral and burial. Secondly, we wanted to discuss the various methods of paying for those costs. We were able to get all of mother’s questions answered and got a good deal of information. Simms is a very reputable operation and has been in business in Soda Springs for thirty years.

Their burial plots in the Cleveland Cemetery have already been purchased and the headstone is already in place. Everything else will cost about $7,500. The big-ticket items are the casket (about $2,000), the vault ($900), and the funeral home processes ($3,000). Mother has done some planning for the funeral program. We’re kind of thinking of having the funeral in the late morning (about 11?) followed by the interment in Cleveland. That would be followed by a family dinner, probably at the new chapel in Niter before people leave to go home. Comments and suggestions welcome.

It’s important to remember, however, that dad is definitely still alive and (kinda) kicking. He’s already defied our expectations many times over.

Funds to pay for the funeral and interment are not the issue. There are several insurance policies as well as more than sufficient cash on hand. The question is whether or not dad will need to be transferred from skilled nursing into the normal nursing home. While his bed and room wouldn’t change, the payment method definitely changes. His costs are currently being paid by Medicare. That plan will pay up to 20 days of skilled nursing (as long as he’s making sufficient progress) at 100% and another 80 days at 80% (and his Monsanto insurance will pick up 80% of the deductable). The sticker is “sufficient progress”. That isn’t going to happen very long. When that process ends, he goes onto “self pay”. That means mother has to pay out of his assets (based on a fairly complicated formula and procedure that allocates all of their joint assets) until his assets are all but used up. Then Medicaid will kick in.

We’re allowed to take sufficient money out of his assets to pay for his funeral and burial expenses, but that money has to be set aside in an irrevocable trust or the appropriate insurance policies have to be signed over to the funeral home. So, we’re investigating the options and will need to make some decisions Real Soon Now.

On another unrelated note, the property owners in Pocatello dealt a death blow to our public school system by defeating the supplemental levy. This levy expires every two years and has been voted up every two years for many, many years until this vote. The levy provides about 10% of the school district’s expenses. Losing that money by itself is very problematic. Coupled with the significant cutbacks in state funding, the defeat of the levy will put the schools into an impossible situation. They will not be able provide the government mandated education. They also won’t be able to provide the services that the community thinks they should be providing.

A goodly part of the blame for the failure lies with the school administration who didn’t take this issue seriously enough to do what was needed to sell the supplemental levy to the taxpayers. A share of the blame resides with one bull-headed (and very stupid) local wannabe politician who campaigned against the levy as way to show how fiscally conservative he is so he can finally prevail in an election. He’s trying to push his own selfish agenda on the broken backs of our students. I suspect that the district will float another, smaller levy in hopes of salvaging something. However, the other politician, who I won’t name because I don’t want him to have any more publicity, will be even more emboldened.

Another part of the blame lays at the feet of our new President of Change. Some part of the “stimulus” package is supposed to go to schools. A lot has been made of that in the press including our local, and as usual, out-of-touch newspaper. Even if the money actually stays in the “stimulus” package, there’s no guarantee that any of it will get to our local school district. Further, if any of it does (there are too many sticking places along the way here), it will at best replace about 25% of what the levy generates.

I am very disappointed in the voters in our school district and sickened by the actions of a local wannabe politician. I will do everything I can to make sure he never, ever, gets elected to anything.