elpasospeak

The board of managers of our county hospital has some explaining to do.

They recently gave a six digit bonus to their chief executive officer.

The county hospital experienced some significant events last year.  The readers should be able to remember more but these are the ones I can recall:

• They had to lay off more than 50 employees because of financial difficulties
• They reported that the children’s hospital deal that the county hospital CEO heavily promoted has left the hospital holding the bag on 71 million dollars worth of debt
• They had to take a payday loan, borrowing against next year’s property taxes to make it through the year
• Our county commissioners gave the hospital authority to issue 151 million dollars of bonds
  • to remodel floors of the hospital that have not been maintained even though we are told that the hospital operates at a profit
  • to build new outpatient clinics, but then just a few weeks later the CEO said that the money will have to be repurposed, whatever that means
• They had to pay 1.1 million dollars to a woman that was subjected to outrageous treatment just because a federal employee told the doctors and hospital to do it.  From The Texas Tribune:  Aside from the vaginal probe and CT scan, the woman also underwent a forced observed bowel movement, a rectal exam and an X-ray. She was eventually released six hours later then billed $5,000 because she refused to sign a consent-to-search statement.

They gave him a bonus?  In many companies he would have been fired before they even got to this bonus evaluation.

Now one of county commissioners has called for his board member’s resignation.  At least someone has his priorities straight.

This board is appointed by our county commissioners.  We need some changes.

We deserve better

Brutus

We know that our county hospital is in financial trouble.

Wanting to be an informed and engaged citizen as the Times suggested recently,  I decided to read some of the minutes of the recent hospital board meetings.

The last set of minutes that they have posted on their web site is for the June 16, 2014 meeting.  Since then the board has met more than 15 times.  It’s kind of hard to be informed when here we are in November and we cannot read about what they have done since June.

Their finance committee’s activities are a special area of concern.  Unfortunately their last minutes are for April 24, 2014.

I guess they will let us know when they need more of our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

Wanting to follow up on our county hospital’s financial situation I went to their web site and looked at the Tuesday, October 14, 2014 board agenda.

This graphic comes from the first page:

The meeting was video recorded.  Watching it I saw the chief executive officer addressing the board.  He made a point of turning to the camera and recognizing that the citizens were able to watch the meeting also.  It was clearly a great step toward transparency.

Not so fast

Our county hospital is in financial trouble.  Part of the problem is their relationship with the children’s hospital.  The children’s hospital cannot pay what they owe to the county hospital.  The county hospital has been operating as though the bills can be paid.  The result is that the county hospital took the drastic action of getting a payday loan to get it through this year.  Yes, they borrowed money against next year’s property tax receipts.  How they will somehow make things even next year is a mystery.

The above portion of the board agenda shows that the review of the hospital’s financial statements was handled through the consent agenda.  Watching the video of the meeting I saw that there was absolutely no discussion from either the board members, the hospital staff, or the public concerning the financial statements.

Out of sight

What they did was fulfill their requirement to review the financial statements without the public learning any of the details.

This board should be ashamed.

We deserve better

Brutus

Things are ominously quite over at our county hospital and the children’s hospital.

It was some time ago that we learned that the financial auditors for the children’s hospital told us that it was probably not a viable ongoing concerning with the financial arrangements as they are now.

We have been told that the children’s hospital owes the county hospital more than $60 million dollars.

The county hospital had to get permission to borrow money from next year’s paycheck (property tax income) to finish 2014.

The lack of transparency about the situation is troublesome.  I fear that we will eventually be presented with another “fait accompli” along with another bill.

If the situation is as dire as we have been told these guys need to take action to get the situation straightened out.

We deserve better

Brutus

What have we come to when our county judge reports the county’s significant accomplishments for the year as:

1. Deciding to hire a county administrator
2. Taking responsibility for the county budget away from the county auditor
3. Getting a new labor agreement with the sheriff’s officers association.

Wow!

Maybe next year they can work on completing the sports park or something other than bureaucratic stuff.

Most of us could have done the three things above in a couple of days.

Filling the county administrator’s job will be something to watch.  The county hired an out of town firm to perform an extensive nationwide search to find just the right person.

Would anyone care to bet that the city’s former chief financial officer will be at the top of the list?

Hide and watch.

We deserve better

Brutus