All but a handful of states have the authority to fine nursing homes that fail to provide proper care. But that doesn't mean they use it.

We asked all 50 states and the District of Columbia whether they had fined the nursing homes that we considered to be consistently poor performers. Those homes had appeared on our list of poor performers at least three out of four times.

The table below shows those results as well as how cooperative each state was in providing information.  If a state has not provided information to us or hasn't used its fining authority very much you should be very careful about monitoring the care a relative receives from the nursing homes in that state.

State	Number of nursing homes in state (as of September 2005)	Total number of nursing homes on the 2004 Watch List that had been on any Watch List at least 3 times	% of nursing homes in the sample of 3- or 4- time repeaters that were fined	Does state have the authority to fine nursing homes?	Did state provide data on fines levied and ownership?	Did state answer survey regarding regulatory performance?
AK	14	1	0%	Yes	Yes	No
AL	229	10	*	No	Yes	No
AR	236	8	unknown	Yes	No	No
AZ	134	7	14%	Yes	Yes	No
CA	1297	62	82%	Yes	Yes	No
CO	214	10	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
CT	247	7	86%	Yes	Yes	No
DC	20	1	100%	Yes	Yes	No
DE	42	3	unknown	Yes	No	No
FL	692	32	unknown	Yes	No	Yes
GA	362	17	*	No	Yes	No
HI	45	1	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
IA	455	17	94%	Yes	Yes	Yes
ID	80	4	0%	Yes	Yes	No
IL	810	36	50%	Yes	Yes	No
IN	506	15	33%	Yes	Yes	No
KS	366	13	38%	Yes	Yes	No
KY	296	15	60%	Yes	Yes	No
LA	305	8	unknown	Yes	No**	No
MA	464	21	unknown	Yes	No	No
MD	239	10	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
ME	116	4	75%	Yes	Yes	No
MI	430	20	90%	Yes	Yes	No
MN	409	22	32%	Yes	Yes	Yes
MO	520	27	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
MS	204	10	*	No	Yes	No
MT	100	2	*	No	Yes	No
NC	420	23	*	No	Yes	No
ND	83	4	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
NE	225	7	0%	Yes, since 2002	Yes	Yes
NH	82	1	0%	Yes	Yes	No
NJ	361	14	21%	Yes	Yes	Yes
NM	78	3	unknown	Yes	No	Yes
NV	47	3	33%	Yes	Yes	Yes
NY	659	34	74%	Yes	Yes	Yes
OH	975	47	*	No	Yes	Yes
OK	349	10	0%	Yes	Yes	No
OR	138	7	86%	Yes	Yes	No
PA	723	35	54%	Yes	Yes	No
RI	92	4	0%	Yes	Yes	No
SC	176	7	29%	Yes	Yes	No
SD	111	5	0%	Yes	Yes	No
TN	329	12	75%	Yes	Yes	No
TX	1132	41	61%	Yes	Yes	No
UT	92	3	33%	Yes	Yes	No
VA	277	11	0%	Yes	Yes	Yes
VT	41	1	0%	Yes	Yes	No
WA	247	9	44%	Yes	Yes	No
WI	399	19	100%	Yes	Yes	Yes
WV	131	5	0%	Yes	Yes	No
WY	39	3	*	No	Yes	Yes
U.S. AVERAGE	314	14	36%	Yes	Yes	No
* State does not have authority to levy fines.
** Note: Due to Hurricane Katrina, we did not make repeated requests for information to the state of Louisiana.