I’d rather be lost

November 3, 2015

Our temporary county judge has been in the news lately claiming that she saved the children’s hospital.

She did, did she?

It seems to me that the county taxpayers did the saving,  or at least are going to pay for it.

This person sold the voters on the need for a bond to pay for the hospital, watched as the county hospital profiteered on the deal by charging rent for something the voters voted to give to the children’s hospital, sat by as the financial situation turned tragic, and now claims that she has saved us.

Horsefeathers!

Depending upon with version of which story from the county hospital or the county judge that you want to believe the children’s hospital owes us either  $50 million or $100 million.

As another person with my same name said many years ago “Forget not, Zeus, the author of these ills”.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Featherbedding

October 30, 2015

The report we wrote about the other day in Whatever happened to women and children first? details the staffing levels that the contract between our county hospital and the children’s hospital specified.

According to the report, 24.3 FTE’s (full time equivalent) employees are billed to the children’s hospital.

The bill for those people is $2,059,891 each year.  That comes to an average cost of $84,769 per person.

Those costs are before the $91,176 “administrative fee” is tacked on.

The report recommends that the staffing level be 12 instead of 24.3.  It also suggests that the children’s hospital is not getting good service even with the surplus of personnel:

“EPCH lab and radiology personnel are performing many of the tasks assigned to the UMC personnel.”

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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Taking bets?

October 25, 2015

It was in the middle of November of last year that our  county hospital’s board of managers gave the county hospital administrator a $120,000 bonus.

There was quite a stir among the public about the bonus in light of the poor performance of the hospital and the fact that they had to lay off 56 workers because of financial difficulties.

We should be watching to see what the board does this year in light of the financial failure of one of his pet projects–the children’s hospital and also the certification failures earlier this year.

The administrator’s annual evaluation was on the board’s October 13, 2015 agenda.  The item was tabled and is to be brought up on the November agenda.

We deserve better

Brutus

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How important is that job really?

October 24, 2015

The county fired our first county administrator a few weeks ago.  He lasted nine months.

Is it strange that we have heard nothing about finding a replacement?

Is it even stranger that he was fired because of “personal issues”?

One would think that they would have picked up on those “issues” as part of the hiring process, but then again that would require knowing how to vet candidates for senior executive positions.

Will we see our former city chief financial officer reincarnated as the county administrator?  She has friends over there.  Maybe we could see some of her creative accounting somehow balance the budget over at the county and children’s  hospitals.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Help on the horizon

October 23, 2015

This came in the other day from ManintheMoon:

 

County Attorney Jo Ann Bernal lied about investigating Horizon Communities Improvement Association. Why?
County Attorney Jo Ann Bernal told the El Paso Time reporter Alex Hinojose in a article on  2/28/2011@ 12:00:00 AM MST http://archive.elpasotimes.com/ci_17498314
“Last year, El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal assigned an attorney to investigate the nonprofit organization.
“We received a call from city Rep. Rachel Quintana’s office who said they had received complaints from several lot owners who wanted to figure out some kind of relief from paying the association fees,” Bernal said. “Unfortunately we could not determine if there was a crime.”
HCIA is the Horizon Communities Improvement Association   which has collected assessment fees for years on many properties in the Horizon City area and for my area has only handed out a few trees many years ago. HCIA has sued at least 20 lot owners in my subdivision for their fees that they take and demand payment but do little to help my community.
Come to find out through an open records request El Paso County Attorney Bernal office did not do an investigation as she claimed to the El Paso Times of HCIA and one is forced to wonder how she determined that no crime has taken place if her office never did an investigation of HCIA or if HCIA was acting forthright in the operation of this non-profit.
E-mail through ORR:
“From: Joanne Bernal
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 4:31 PM
To: Jorge L. Reyes
Cc: Manuel Romero
Subject: Re: Horizon Community Improvement Association



Manny handled the issue which was not really an investigation.  He will call you to brief you.  JAB

Sent from my iPad”
In my ORR never found out what Commissioner Perez office was briefed on about the HCIA by the County Attorney’s Office.
With so many people not being able to sale there land out here before the water and utilities came in and HCIA trying to sue people and just the fraud in the selling of land in the Horizon City area over the years one would think Bernal would have looked at this closer. In addition the questionable seeding program (program for lot owner to seed their lots back to HCIA so HCIA could sell groups of lots to developers) HCIA was running one would think that our County Attorney would want to make sure everyone was acting above board. Who interest was serviced when Bernal’s office looked the other way?
Remember many lot owners out here were  told for years their land had little value because of no water. Who knew that the water and utilities were coming and benefited in making some believe their land was nearly worthless?
ManintheMoon

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Posted by Brutus

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