Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Board Approves Financial Report

Other than approving the financial report, there was little for the Nevada County Hospital Board of Govenors to do during a noon meeting Thursday.

Karen Ward, administrator of the defunct medical facility, told the three members of the board on hand nothing will be sold until the issue goes before the people for a vote.

The issue to sell the hospital and its equipment will be put to a vote Jan. 9, 1996, when state residents let their wishes be known on a proposed highway construction issue.

Ward said the hospital issue will be added to this election and the people of Prescott and Nevada County will make their decision.

She said Nevada County Judge John Barham has had the house, ambulance service and health unit surveyed from the main hospital property.

"I feel, from what I've been told," she said, "our hands are tied until the election results."

Should the public vote to sell the hospital and equipment, bids will be let as soon as possible.

Ward said there are at least six entities on the list wanting to be notified when something can be done with the hospital building. "I don't know how much we'll be involved," she said.

Buneva Ward gave the financial report, saying she broke the expenses down for the quorum court to be more specific.

In addition, the report gave a break down of what it costs to operate the building, the business office and showed collections.

Her statement also showed administrative expenses and the amount of money applied to the former hospital's debts.

Wood said it will be necessary to keep the medical records because state agencies request them at times.

On a positive note, she told the panel the General Electric Capital Corporation settlement is no longer shown as a liability on the records. The corporation gave NCH a good discount.

Wood said bank statements were not being reconciled when she took over as comptroller, and she has been working to get them in order.

Changing topics, she said, "We need to think about how long we want to do collections. If the hospital is sold, where will we locate the business office?"

She said maintenance expenses could most likely be cut by moving the business office, and added the medical records will have to be moved once the structure is sold.

"This could go on indefinitely," she said. "There could be a point when it's not worth the time."

Wood said the bulk of the money still owed should be collected in less than six months. She told the board something will also need to be done about those people owing from private pay.

She said they could garnish wages and take people to small claims court, but it wouldn't be cheap.

Ward interjected it costs $10 per person to go to small claims court, while Wood said there are some 3,000 accounts which could fall under this category.

However, Wood also said these accounts need to be worked to see if it would be worth the cost of taking them to court.

She continued saying for those whose wages can't be garnished, their debt could be turned over to a collection agency. A collection agency, though, charges 30 percent of what it collects.

"Do we want to stay in this building?" Wood asked. "There's a lot to consider. If the county doesn't give us the money to cover the accounts payable, do we want to keep trying to collect?"

Ward said no justices moved to pay any of the hospital's expenses at the last meeting of the quorum court.

She said the county may work a deal with whoever buys the structure to leave the medical records where they are, but at this time no one knows.

The only other decision made by the board was to cut the maintenance contract by 50 percent beginning this week.