The Healthcare District’s Finance Committee met at the hospital on Tuesday, April 22, to receive the March financial report, and discuss the progress of the 2008-2009 budget process and the impact of salary adjustments on the budget.

The district’s financial advisor Tim Loechl was present via phone and characterized March as “not so good.” The in-patient census was down which in turn meant that revenue was down. This has happened before but this time there were no cash inflows of cost report paybacks to balance everything out. The district also continues to deal with a new law that prohibits them from sending overdue accounts to collection until 180 days have passed.

On the good side, clinic visits were up by about 10% during March, and most outpatient services experienced volumes in excess of budget projections.

”One bad month doesn’t make a bad year,” Loechl said.

Historically, patient loads increase during the spring and summer in the district, and overall, the district is still approaching a break-even position.

In a discussion of the budget process underway to come up with a 2008-2009 budget that will reflect the reductions in reimbursements from the state and

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federal governments, financial services manager Mike Nagle said that the district is looking at bringing more of the accounting services being provided by Loechl back in-house to reduce expenses. Loechl is helping the district train its new accounting staff person to take over. Nagle said it will take a few years to complete but will provide a beneficial savings to the district in the long run.

District Administrator Debbie Scaife said the revenue side of the new budget is all but done, and that all departments have been working on their departmental budgets. Still to be determined is how much the district’s fees for services will increase. Departments are now getting quarterly reports on their expenditures to help them track their spending.

Nagle and Scaife will be meeting with departments to do the fine tuning on the departmental budget. Scaife said that the budget process is ahead of schedule and that the final version will be ready by the May committee meeting.

The committee also received a report on the impact of the 2007-2008 salary adjustments on the budget. Nurses were given an adjustment to bring them closer to the industry standard in November 2007. The total cost of that is $75,158 per year. Other clinic staff were given adjustments in February 2008, at a cost of $62,601. Adjustments given to the clerical staff in March total $22,558 per year.

Scaife said that the total of $160,317 will be offset by making adjustments in other areas, depending on how the district is affected by Medicare and Medi-Cal reductions.

There was support on the committee for trying to remain competitive so as to attract good personnel. Even so, most of the district’s pay scales are only at 50 to 75 percent of what is offered in larger facilities.