Dateline: July 7, 2005

Notice error delays hospital district budget

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The Donley County Hospital District board approved a temporary spending motion last Friday after a public notice error prevented the adoption of the 2005-06 budget.

“We lacked a day having the proper notice given to hold the budget hearing,” board president Alan Fletcher said. “We just counted wrong.”

The district thought its notice in the Thursday, June 23, edition of The Clarendon Enterprise gave it the required ten-days notice to hold a hearing on July 1 since the paper came out on Wednesday, June 22. But the Enterprise is legally a Thursday paper under its periodicals postage permit, and all public notices must be published according to that date.

The district rescheduled its budget hearing for its next regular board meeting on July 19.

In other district business during Friday’s called meeting, the board accepted the resignation of board member Pat McAnear and appointed Gene Hommel to take her place.

The board approved Medical Center Nursing Home’s having a poker run to raise funds to benefit the residents. The board also authorized several employee policy changes as presented by administrator in-training Vicky Robertson.

During the open forum, publisher Roger Estlack spoke concerning a legal opinion obtained by board president Alan Fletcher which has restricted the use of district funds for advertising and promotion.

“You can’t keep the nursing home open if you don’t keep the beds full,” Estlack said, “and you can’t fill the beds if you don’t advertise and keep a positive image in the community.”

Estlack said he had talked with another hospital district that said advertising is definitely legal and a reimbursable expense under Medicare. He encouraged the district to look at the issue again in light of its pending certification as a Medicare facility and said the board should consider getting an Attorney General’s opinion on the matter.

Some board members said they felt advertising was important and proper. Fletcher said he would look into an Attorney General’s opinion and said decreases in the promotion lines of the proposed budgets were not targeted at the newspaper but were rather an indication of how tight the district’s finances are.

“We’re in a catch 22 where we need to advertise, but the advertising cost may sink us,” he said.