FLOYD COUNTY — Figuring out how much to spend out of the first few payments of the Floyd Memorial Hospital sale caused some eventful discussion, but the Floyd County Commissioners and Floyd County Council made an agreement at Thursday’s meeting.
For the first three years, the two bodies will spend $12 million on projects, which they’ve yet to identify, out of the initial $75 million payment. However, part of that deal is to close up the forecasted deficit in the county’s 2016 budget.
Upon the closure of the sale, scheduled for Sept. 30, the county will receive $75 million. All but $5 million will go into a community foundation that will be created after reviewing requests for proposals from different organizations. The rest will go toward projects including roads, infrastructure and others.
The two bodies also agreed that out of that first $5 million, they’d shore up a maximum of $1.5 million to plug the deficit in the county council’s budget. But Matt Oakley, council member, said he doesn’t want the council to get in the habit of going to hospital money to bail out their shortfalls.
“I think the council has a very serious discussion to be had about future budgets, 2017’s budget,” Oakley said. “I think that’s our responsibility as a council, to make sure the budget’s moving forward to reflect our priorities.”
Scott Clark, county auditor, said at worst, the entire shortfall will come in at $1.9 million. With about $800,000 in rainy day funds, officials could use part of that money to fill the gap, but hospital sale dollars will fill in the rest.
The agreement to make up the deficit only came after Steve Bush, president of the commissioners, pushed the council to replace that $1.5 million at the beginning of next year. The county will get the $3 million in revenue that the hospital is projected to generate from the beginning of this year through the date of the sale’s closing.
The rest of the three-year plan looks at spending a portion of the payments Baptist Health will make to the county for the remainder of the hospital’s sale, which come in at about $5.6 million annually. Bush said in 2017, they’d spend $3 million of that and put the rest back into the foundation to earn interest, then spend $2 million of that payment for the next two years and put that remainder in the foundation.
The vote to spend $12 million came in unanimously on the side of the council and 2-1 with the commissioners, with commissioner Chuck Freiberger opposing.
“I think again, we’re doing a band-aid on the budget,” Freiberger said. “It’s a million dollars or whatever and I understand we’re shoring that up, but that was my opposition to what we’re doing in the first place. We sold the hospital to do band-aids because we’re not balancing the budget the way it should be balanced.”
A vote to replenish the $1.5 million from the initial payment with hospital revenues next year passed 5-1 with the council. John Schellenberger, councilman, opposed the measure and Lana Aebersold, councilwoman, left the meeting before the vote. The commissioners voted in favor of the measure 2-1, with Freiberger opposing.