Health care board debates raises for employees

Posted 4/20/18

Sublette County Rural Health Care District board approves expense for design team to evaluate existing Pinedale Medical Clinic for expansion, and also an environmental study on ball fields.

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Health care board debates raises for employees

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BIG PINEY – Even as the Sublette County Rural Health Care District Board scrambles to meet the demands posed by the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development division to make its loan application acceptable, members discussed raises or bonuses for the district’s employees.

The board met Wednesday, April 18, at the Big Piney Town Hall.

Board member Laura Clark initiated the discussion, saying the staff had come up with ways to save $600,000 in a previous fiscal year and again this past year. She said that is a significant savings for small clinics and they needed to be awarded for their sacrifices. She asked the board to consider either raises or a one-time bonus out of the current fiscal year.

Lorraine Gatzke, executive director of finance, initially estimated a 5-percent bonus on the district’s $6-million payroll would be $140,000 a year. When she was asked the cost of a 5 percent raise, she said she did not have the information available to answer. She added it bonuses would be less expensive because the district would not have to pay into the retirement fund for a bonus.

The last time employees received a raise was 2012. Board member Wendy Boman said the Sublette County Commissioners gave county employees a raise in 2014 and were having a similar discussion for the upcoming fiscal year.

Clark objected to the comparison, saying district employees should not be compared to county employees because county employees don’t take calls and are not working 24 hours, seven days a week.

Boman advocated waiting until the hospital was built, saying it would appear to the USDA that the board was spending more money when it should be saving money for the project.

Clark disagreed, saying it would do no good to have a hospital if the employees were gone.

An employee for the district spoke up, saying, “The cost of good health care in Sublette County should not come at the expense of those who provide it.”

Board member John Godfrey also speculated if they wait for the hospital to be built, it could be seven years between raises for employees. However, after Gatzke waivered on final figures, he asked her to come back with costs for both bonuses and raises at 3 percent, 5 percent and 7 percent.

Earlier in the meeting, the board discussed the importance of getting “skin in the game” and commitments for funds from other sources.

The board had discussed the advantages of hiring a management company.

Board Chairman Scott Scherbel said it is more important at this point to have a hospital.

He added the board has a “partner” in the USDA and Program Director Lorraine Werner encouraged them to find a management company.

Gatzke reported that she was researching available grants from the State Land Investment Board, foundations and other sources. Scherbel thanked her and encouraged her to continue that process.

The board also approved a $16,540 expenditure on a value engineering and design review that will determine if the existing Pinedale Medical Clinic is suitable to be reconfigured as a critical access hospital. An additional provision was made for a $10,000 environmental review to be done on Pinedale’s adjacent ball fields, built on a landfill, to determine if an expansion could be safely done. The environmental review was made contingent on the county selling the clinic and the Town of Pinedale donating the ball fields for the project.

Other actions taken by the board included:

• Board members heard about a donation of an Alfa Wassermann instrument used in clinical laboratories for diagnostic applications. The clinic was a test site for a machine and the company offered to donate a similar $58,000 machine and provide installation, training and supplies to replace a used machine in the Marbleton Clinic.

• The board announced free sports clinics for high school students in the upcoming months with two dates scheduled at each clinic. The physicals will be May 21 and July 25 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Big Piney High School, and June 27 and Aug. 9 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Pinedale High School.

• The district is providing basic first aid classes in the school districts called “Stop the Bleed” that will teach students basic first aid to stop bleeding and apply tourniquets.

• The board authorized its attorney Doug Mason to draft a lease with Sublette County for the two clinics. The existing three-year lease expires in June.

• Board member Boman questioned Wednesday’s impromptu meeting where four members attended with representatives from St. John’s Medical Center on the phone. She said she was told that was a violation of Wyoming’s Open Meetings Law. Mason disagreed, saying the board took no action. Pinedale Roundup Editor Holly Dabb presented a copy of the law to Scherbel. He said the board would follow the advice of its counsel.

• The board went into a closed executive session to discuss personnel and legal matters. n