elpasospeak

This note was emailed to me the other day:

“I understand that if Valenti makes it to2016 he gets a $3 million incentive. I ask that you verify.”

Is this true?

Does anyone have a copy of our hospital administrator’s contract?

We deserve better

Brutus

Our county hospital administrator has told us that he believes our children’s hospital should be placed under the county hospital, in other words under his control.

This is the same hospital administrator that has been under fire lately.

No one has yet  explained how  the citizens of El Paso could approve bonds to pay for the construction of the children’s hospital and the county hospital would have the right to charge the children’s hospital rent.  We paid for the facility  and gave it to the children’s hospital.  Why does the county hospital deserve rent income for it?

If the children’s group could actually afford to make the rent payments the county hospital would be the beneficiary of an additional $10 million a year of income,  just as if we had voted for a tax increase for the hospital.

Our county hospital administrator was at the head of the parade supporting the building of the children’s hospital.  Studies showed that the children’s hospital would be financially viable.  What he failed to tell us was that the study was based on a considerably smaller facility.  What we got was never predicted to be viable by any published study.

Last year our county hospital administrator was given $150 million of bond money to build three new out-patient clinics and to refurbish part of the hospital.  If the hospital was truly running profitably it would have been able to do the refurbishing with operating revenues.  Shortly after getting the money our administrator declared that the money needed to be “repurposed”.

The future

People from the children’s hospital and from the county hospital have been working to try to find a way to solve the financial problems.

Now we are told that the way to do this is to bring the children’s hospital under the county umbrella.

This doesn’t make sense to me.  I would think that a private or not-for-profit group would have high interest in being able to operate a hospital where they have no rent to pay.  Yet it looks like no one wants to do it.

Could it be that our hospital administrator has deliberately been unreasonable in whatever negotiations that have been held?  Could it be that no one wants the children’s hospital because he ran the interested parties off?  Could he have contributed to the failure of the children’s hospital so that he could gain control of it?

Whether you trust him or not, the hospital administrator should not be the one handling these negotiations.  He has a conflict of interest.

One technique that might work here is to issue a request for proposals (RFP).  The RFP would ask interested parties to tell us under what conditions they would operate a children’s hospital in the facility and what level of services they would provide.

We have the wrong people handling this situation.

We deserve better

Brutus

The El Paso County Hospital District board has come under fire for recent events.  There have been calls for the resignation of the board.

The current story is that they will be issuing a written reprimand to their hospital administrator.  Previously the hospital board was marching lock-step with their administrator.  Now they say they want to chastise him.  Enough!  This is self serving hypocrisy.  Blame your employee for what you previously praised.  Both the board and the administrator need correcting.

State law does not allow the county commissioners to fire any of the board members except for absence, lack of qualification (being related to the wrong people), or  “misconduct”, which is defined in terms of misuse of property.

Many people who have served on these local citizen  boards feel that their tenure was dependent upon the continued support of the entity that appointed them.  This current hospital board evidently does not subscribe to that belief.

Contrary to what the county hospital site says the hospital board members are appointed for three year terms, not two year terms.

Looking at the chart below, which came from the county web site, the commissioners will be able to appoint two new board members in a few months.  Then again the chart might not be correct, we are dealing with elected officials after all.

While the commissioners might not be able to force the departure of any of the members, we should expect to see some of the members pay more attention and do a better job.

If nothing else it is time for the hospital board members to meet with the commissioner that appointed them.  These board members are our neighbors and they do not want the opprobrium associated with this situation.

In the meantime, the county commissioners do have control over the hospital district’s budget and, believe it or not, the hospital’s purchasing.

We deserve better

Brutus