Let’s say that you went to your employer and asked to borrow 3 1/2 months salary as an advance.
What would he/she say?
If you are working for a government agency the answer would have to be no. In Texas governments cannot pay for work in advance.
If you are working for a private employer they would probably ask you some questions before they said no. Those questions might include:
How are you going to pay us back?
Are you going to somehow increase your income?
Are you going to get a second job?
Are you expecting a pay raise?
Are you expecting to inherit money?
Have you been playing the lottery?
Does someone owe you that can actually pay you back?
Will this money fix the problem or will you continue to go deeper in debt?
Are you going to cut expenses?
How long will it take you to pay us back?
What interest rate are you expecting to pay?
Hospitals are no different
Our county hospital wants to borrow $20 million from next year’s tax receipts. How are they going to pay us back?
They can’t get another job. They should not be playing the lottery. The children’s hospital owes them some money but cannot pay it back. They might be able to increase taxes but that won’t fix their ongoing deficit.
Cutting expenses is an option. Can they? Will it mean denying care to needy patients? Will it mean cutting corners and giving medical care of a lower quality?
Could they hire someone that knows how to run a hospital on a financially sound basis?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Good analogy. Now, if only these politicians will listen.
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I dont think they should “cut staffing” unless those positions were no longer needed. The County Hospital needs to be staffed for County wide emergencies. (And NOW there may be a surge of all these illegal immigrant children coming across the border. . . with. . . “Who knows what.”)
So, the one’s responsible for running the County Hospital need to fix/ adjust/ the hospital’s income without going to the taxpayers.
Maybe they need to talk with other County Hospitals and see what steps to take. And/Or get reimbursed from the state or Federal for patients “Not from this country”.
Those who live in border areas should not have to pay to fix a National/Federal border problem.
Hospital administrators get paid Big Money to KNOW this ahead of time, to plan ahead, and how to Send the bill to Washington and watch for trends that would put them in the hole.
Maybe the County Hosiptal needs a loan until they can learn what to do? Or get a competent Hospital Administrator?
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You forgot one question that most employers would ask;
“How do we know you’ll stick around to insure that we get paid back?”
Case in point: Wilson, Candelaria, Ortega, Byrd et al, who will not have to answer for budget problems related to the many bad decisions they foisted upon taxpayers on behalf of special interests.
Byrd is also now contributing to the UMC financial mess if, as reported, she was quietly given the role of being a paid spokesperson for UMC. Some people just can’t stop feeding at the public trough. Is Valenti worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars he is paid annually if he can’t even answer media questions himself?
My plan for UMC is simple. They can use their reserve funds, which is no different than the rest of us having to take money from our savings accounts when our income doesn’t cover our expenses.
Oh, I almost forgot. Terminate both the CEO and CFO.
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I believe that she is the spokesperson for the children’s hospital.
Brutus
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I stand corrected. There is so much incestuousness among our local public entities, it’s hard to keep them straight, especially when some people are involved with multiple organizations.
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I still can’t figure out why Children’s owes UMC “rent” unless it is for services. The taxpayers, not UMC, paid for the building, so why does UMC get to charge rent?
Increasingly, it seems to me that the biggest problem is Valenti’s ego.
As for, “Those who live in border areas should not have to pay to fix a National/Federal border problem”, well that didn’t fix what NAFTA did to our tax base or the bridge traffic jam or cartel violence and its fallout on our economy. The larger trend is that we are living now in an age of limits as far as federal largess goes unless you are in the military-security complex.
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