CLEVELAND -- How much state money to allocate to nursing homes is one of the most expensive and controversial parts of the ongoing battle over finalizing Ohio's next budget.

Just days are left for Ohio's governor and state lawmakers to decide on how Ohio is going to spend taxpayer money over the next two years.

And long-term care facilities operators are anxious to know how they will be affected.

Martha Kutik, President and CEO of the Jennings Center for Older Adults in Garfield Heights, knows how much the budget battle in Columbus is going to affect her residents.

"We think we're doing things right," she tells WKYC, "yet the way the state budget is going to impact us this year, in the original budget we were going to be losing $100,000 a month."

The Jennings Center considers itself a model facility. It combines nursing home care with assisted and independent living options. It's unusual in a state fighting over whether to fund institutions or home-based services.

"We believe strongly in home and community based services," Kutik says, "but when those don't work anymore what are you going to do? What's the alternative."

"We believe there is still a place in our system of services for nursing home care."

Ohio puts 75 percent of its Medicaid money into nursing homes and 25 percent into home and community based services.

The national average for states is 61 percent to nursing homes and 39 percent to home and community based service.

Ohio lawmakers want to increase the amount of state money going to nursing homes, which have a powerful lobby in the legislature.

Governor Ted Strickland has proposed to cut back funding to nursing homes.

"The sheer number of folks who are going to live into their 80s and 90s and even 100 years old is going to necessitate that we continue nursing home services," Kutik says.

Residents of her facilities understand the impact of the decisions which will be made in Columbus.

Larry Krusinksi, 85, who lives with his wife in an assisted living apartment at Jennings, says nobody seems to have money these days.

"Today's tough times for everybody now," he explained. "It's kind of hard but you have to learn to live with it."

Family members of Jennings Home residents say don't paint all nursing homes with the same brush. Debbie Boczek was just finishing a chat with her 91-year-old mother-in-law who resides at Jennings.

"We love the decision we have made," she says, of she and her husband's approval of her mother-in-law becoming a resident of Jennings Home.

"To have her in a facility where she has a social program. She has peers that have the same complaints and the same problems. She has this rather than sitting at home and watching TV all the time," Boczek said.

While the trend nationally has been away from nursing home care when it can be avoided, Ohio still relies heavily on nursing homes. The issue is politically charged, but Kutik says the answers are out there.

"In the long run I think there's got to be leadership and intelligent public planning," she says. "There's got to be better public policy. That's the bottom line."