Tuesday, November 21, 2023, 7:26 pm
News Flash Archive
At this afternoon's city council meeting, the council voted to table the resolution to reject all bids for the sale or lease of Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
The Taxpayers Channel reported yesterday that such a resolution was on the agenda for today's meeting. See our first reporting here: Greenwood City Council prepares to reject all bids for the lease or sale of Greenwood Leflore Hospital
But at today's council meeting, Mayor Carolyn McAdams said that there was confusion regarding what she told us over the weekend. When we asked her "does the proposed resolution actually reject all the bids? . . . Do you think that the city council will vote to reject all the bids," her reply to us was "yes we [will] be voting to reject the total bid." Later she clarified that she meant "both bids."
Now it appears the Mayor didn't mean to say that the council would reject all bids, but rather, that the council would vote on a resolution to reject all bids.
Several council members were distressed that they hadn't been told about plans to reject all the bids, and they had not actually reviewed the bids themselves.
City Attorney Don Brock related that he had met with a lawyer from Wise Carter on November 7, along with the Mayor, Council President Ronnie Stevenson, the County Supervisor's attorney, Supervisors Robert Collins and Reginald Moore. Wise Carter is handling the RFP and bidding process for the city and county.
At that meeting, the Wise Carter attorney recommended rejecting all bids, due to the bids being non-compliant and non-responsive to the terms of the RFP.
Brock said that the areas of concern included failure to guarantee the continuing employment of current hospital staff, failure to meet the minimum net worth amount of $75 million required by the RFP, failure to specify adequate pledges of capital improvements, and unclear terms in the bids for the proposed lease.
In the end, the council voted to table the resolution rejecting the bids, to allow further study by the council members who had not reviewed the bids and did not know what was going on.
Some discussion took place about whether the council members could meet in small groups with Wise Carter, in order to avoid a quorum and force an open meeting. Mr. Brock cautioned that they cannot "piece meal" meetings to escape the open meetings act.
The entire city council meeting may be seen here: Greenwood City Council Meeting, November 21, 2023
The discussion about the hospital bids begins at the 11 minute 22 second timestamp.
Earlier today, the Greenwood Leflore Hospital Board of Trustees held its regular monthly meeting.
The trustees approved a resolution by the medical staff executive committee dedicating the medical staff lounge to the memory of Dr. Michael T. Boler, who passed away recently. A plaque will be added in the lounge commemorating Dr. Boler's years of service to the community.
According to the financial report given by Mrs. Dawne Holmes, the Hospital had an operating loss of $1.50 million in October.
But because GLH received one-time money of $4 million in October, the overall profit was $2.50 million. The one-time money consisted of $1 million from the state legislature's "Hospital Sustainability Fund," and the additional $3 million was the third draw from Leflore County's $10 million line of credit obtained to prop up the hospital until its critical access application to CMS is either granted or finally denied.
At the end of October, the useable cash and equivalents were $3.68 million.
As of the end of October, the hospital still owes Medicare $4.46 million. The Medicare loan is being paid down at around $102,000 per month.
Mrs. Holmes also reported that the September 30, 2023 Pension Fund Actuarial Report showed that the 2022 $18.9 million underfunding liability has now dropped to $16.4 million, with the pension now funded at 66.5%, up from 62% last year.
The board then went into executive session, with the public and the press excluded for 38 minutes.
The Board of Trustees meeting may be viewed here: GLH Board Meeting of November 21, 2023
To review our reporting on GLH and its financial woes, please see here: Index of Greenwood Leflore Hospital news articles
John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel
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