Supervisors dig into budget; want more info on hospital support request

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

After several weeks of listening to outside groups and county departments pitch their budget requests for the next fiscal year, the Floyd County Board of Supervisors started talking Tuesday about what the county will be able to afford.

According to figures pulled together by County Auditor Gloria Carr, the initial county budget requests would boost total spending by almost a million dollars — more than a 10 percent increase from the current year’s $9.025 million to a proposed $9.985 million in expenditures.

On Tuesday, the supervisors began whittling away at that increase.

The two biggest reasons for the increase are a jump in county employee health insurance costs of more than $300,000, and a request for county support from the Floyd County Medical Center for $500,000.

The county will spend more than $1.65 million on employee health insurance in the new fiscal year that will begin July 1, and there was another huge rate increase this year.

That insurance cost in the proposed budget won’t change, as the supervisors have already contracted with a new insurance broker to reduce costs and had to have health care plan options set for open enrollment for county employees before the end of last year.

The half million dollars for the county hospital is the biggest budget question mark, and supervisors Tuesday said they may be willing to give the medical center something, but were not leaning toward the full $500,000.

Last year the county hospital had requested $100,000, the first request for county support in many years, and the supervisors had not given the hospital anything.

The board agreed to invite hospital officials back again to answer questions about the hospital’s finances, direction and long-range plans.

Supervisor Linda Tjaden said, “I’ve had many discussions with people throughout the county, not just in this area. You get people from the other part of the county, they don’t even use our county hospital.

“If you’re on the west part of the county you’re going to Mercy (Health Center in Mason City). If you’re on the northern part they just go to Mitchell (County Regional Health Center in Osage). That’s going to be the challenge — it’s all Floyd County taxpayers having to pay for it,” Tjaden said.

Supervisor Doug Kamm said, “They’re losing money (delivering) babies, but they’re really marketing that. … Why would you go after business that you know you’re going to lose money on?”

Kamm said the hospital is important, but he still has questions about its finances.

Hospital officials have pointed out that the Floyd County Medical Center is the only county hospital in the state that does not receive county support, but Kamm said that most of those other hospitals are not memorial hospitals like Floyd County is, and they have the power to collect their own property taxes.

Floyd County and Grundy County have the only two remaining memorial hospitals in the state, where they are directed by a board of appointed commissioners rather than by an elected hospital board that would have the power to levy taxes.

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said, “Most of the people I talk to say, absolutely, we want to have a good county hospital. We’re happy with Floyd County Hospital, we’re glad it’s here. We want to keep it here.”

But, he said, he recently went through the latest hospital audit and he still had questions.

“What I really thought after I read that, I think I at least, and maybe we want to as a board, we need to go back to them and get some more information,” Schwickerath said.

“That’s what I was hoping for,” said Tjaden, saying she would like to have the members of the hospital administration come back in, “but it would be nice to have somebody on the commission actually come and join them.”

Tjaden said she had questions about why the hospital was adding services “and they’re still requesting $500,000 from us because they’re needing assistance.”

“I understand you want to make these services available,” Tjaden said. “Yet again, we’re Floyd County, Iowa. You know those services are available not that far away.”

The supervisors went through the individual county department budgets with Auditor Carr and made some minor changes, but have not made decisions yet on substantial cuts.

Carr will plug in numbers on the changes and suggestions the supervisors made and come back with new estimates on the totals to continue the budget discussions.

Decisions need to be made by the end of February so that the proposed budget can be published and a public hearing held before it is due to the state on March 15.