Continuing lies

August 20, 2014

Now the financial expert that was brought in to save the children’s hospital has resigned.

It looks like the ship is sinking.

It was built on false economics.

After multiple studies they finally found one that said it might work, if.

Then the people behind this built a hospital even bigger than the one that the last study said would be marginal.

The children’s hospital needed to be a part of a general hospital, not a separate entity that would draw money away from our county hospital.

The charges from the county hospital were poorly planned.  To this day no one has explained why the children’s hospital has to pay rent to the county hospital when the construction was financed by a separate bond issue specifically promoted to build the children’s hospital.  The charges for services that the children’s hospital has to pay the county hospital are unreasonable.  If children’s was in fact a separate entity they could have at least managed those expenses to be within their means.

The revenue projections, as optimistic as they were, were based on reimbursement from the state and feral governments.  Planning to have a steady revenue stream from those two was just wrong.

Now both hospitals are in trouble.

The children’s hospital chief executive has resigned.  Is the situation beyond fixing, or would the solutions not be acceptable to the people in power who got us into this mess originally?

We will soon get to see the new county hospital budget for next year.  I won’t be surprised if it too is based on false economics.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

7 Comments | County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Our hospital is sick

August 14, 2014

It seems that our county hospital chief executive is not very good at forecasting either.

He told us before the children’s hospital was built that it would be self-sustaining, no additional taxpayer money would be needed to operate it.  That bill is now over $60 million and climbing.

He convinced our county commissioners to allow him to issue $152 million in bonds to remodel part of the county hospital and to build three new outpatient clinics.  He forecast that those clinics would save us $17 million a year in emergency room costs.

Then, evidently before he figured out how to spend the money, he sold the bonds.  Read his offer to you here.

Now he tells us there is another problem.  He needs to spend $19 million for a new patient records system before he can open the clinics.  There are two surprises here, the first being that he did not see the need for the system before he made plans for the clinics and the second that such a system would cost remotely near that amount.

The three clinics are supposedly being designed as you read this.

Do these problems stem from a lack of capability on his part or from a lack of respect for the taxpayers?

Either way they amount to one thing–a failure to be a competent steward of our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Judged poorly

August 7, 2014

Our county judge is presiding over a commisioner’s court that has not done well by us recently.

We have:

  • a county hospital that is so poorly managed that they are seeking a payday loan
  • a sports park that is incomplete with no announced plan for how or when it will be finished
  • a county hospital that performs outrageously invasive body searches on people just because a federal employee tells them to
  • a county lake that almost runs dry with no one noticing it
  • a children’s hospital that is insolvent
  • a judicial system that illegally imposes sky high fees on citizens

Now she wants to hire a county administrator.  Our county judge gets paid more than our mayor and her county commissioners get paid more than city representatives.  Yet most of the county functions are independently run by elected officials.  The items listed above however are not things that fall into those departments run by other elected officials, they are things that she should be supervising.

How much will they pay the new county administrator?  Will the new administrator coincidentally turn out to be her neighbor, our former city chief financial officer?

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Inhospitable

August 2, 2014

Our county hospital chief executive officer (CEO) is upset that he had to fire 56 employees the other day.

He should be

This is a mess that he created.  Our CEO actively promoted the plan for the El Paso Children’s Hospital to the voters.

Turning attention to the 56 jobs and away from the carnage that terminating the employees will cause for them and their families, we should ask about the necessity of those jobs.

Were they unnecessary, fluff, pork?  If so then shame on management for wasting the money.  How much more of this is going on at the hospital?

If they were necessary, what will happen to patient care?  Will this just be an inconvenience that patients will have to endure for the sake of the massive egos of management?  Or will patient care be jeopardized?  What will that do to the quality of life of the patients?  Hopefully no one will die as a result of this cut back.  I wonder how much that would cost us?

We deserve better

Brutus

“Even though the children’s hospital is under our umbrella, it will be governed separately   September 2, 2011

3 Comments | County Government, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Minding the store

July 31, 2014

Back  when the children’s hospital was being promoted to the public for the bond issue vote the chief executive officer (CEO) of the hospital, the county judge, and various county hospital board members assured us that the children’s hospital would be self-sustaining and would not require taxpayer money in order to operate once it was built.

The check is in the mail and other various lies

Now three or four years later the county hospital CEO tells us that the children’s hospital owes the county hospital 70 million dollars.

Who was watching the store?

Our county judge and the CEO are responsible for watching the operations of the county hospital.  Where have they been?  The 70 million dollar debt had to start a mere few millions at a time.  Why didn’t these people ring the alarm bells at that time?

A CEO in the private world who allowed this to happen on his watch would be looking for employment.

Is it fair to say that both our CEO and our county judge have failed us?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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