OXFORD – Chenango County officials are continuing their efforts to reverse the state health department’s plans to tear down the New York State Veterans’ Home in Oxford after staff and residents move over to a new facility in the fall.

Both a timeline and the costs for demolishing the 1970s era home are in this year’s proposed state budget.

Representatives of the Social Services department and Health and Human Services Committee have met with state officials on at least two occasions, hoping to find ways to reuse the 242-bed structure, quite possibly as an assisted living facility for the county’s growing aged population.

Construction of a new, $66 million 220,000 square foot nursing home for the state’s war veterans began in 2006. It is located in front of the current building on county Route 32 in Oxford. A former home that served vets on the same site from 1897 through the 1970s was demolished to make way for the current building.