Following a series of executive sessions, Allen County commissioners Tuesday morning said they were not yet ready to identify potential sites for a new county hospital, except to agree that parcels of land being considered were on the east side of Iola.
Allen County voters will decide Nov. 2 whether the county will enact a quarter-cent sales tax to raise about $400,000 a year for 10 years to provide a portion of funding for a new hospital and its operation. Other funding sources include up to $350,000 a year in sales tax money from Iola, also for 10 years, as well as Medicare reimbursement for construction and hospital profits, together estimated at $2.5 million a year.
Revenue required for construction of a new hospital is expected to total about $30 million, with $5 million of that for working capital and operations. Commissioners said Tuesday raw construction was anticipated at about $18 million, with another $7 million for equipment, buyout of Hospital Corporation of America and to purchase a site.
They said no deal had been struck with HCA for the buyout and cost of land was an unknown. Site consideration is being done on the hush, which the Kansas Open Meetings Law permits, in an effort to keep prices from escalating.
Commissioners said they would put together more specific cost figures, as well as those of revenue sources, soon so that voters would have full access to information before the referendum.
SOME GOOD financial news surfaced at the meeting.
Loren Korte, local representative of the county’s insurance carrier, EMC, handed commissioners refund checks of $38,439.09 for 2009-10 and $22,441.18 for 2008-09, a total of $60,880.27.
Korte explained the refunds were made possible by premiums exceeding demands within EMC Kansas counties pool. The one from a year ago occurred after it was learned the Greensburg tornado was not as great a drain on the company as first thought.
The county paid EMC premiums of about $127,000 this year.
