Citizen: You heard most of my feedback the other night. I stand pat on what I said.
Citizen #2: What did you say if you don't mind me asking.
Citizen 1: Well, we're in favor of the hospital being financed the way it should be.
Citizen 2: in what way?
Citizen 1: 17
Citizen 3: And I think Gary pointed that out very well when he said he had called Dairy Queen to see what a large Blizzard costs and it was the same as it would cost for a month, on average. And I thought that was a very interesing exampe.
Citizen 2: Is this the only. there is no place else to go except this route. Is that what you all think?
Reynolds: Legally we can pass any rate below this, just cannot pass rate exceeding maximum.
Citizen 2. You all believe we need to pass this at this rate or below this rate?
Reynolds: The big unknown is what the value
Griffin: If we don't get that answer, we have to have this.
Citizen 2: Okay. So what you're saying is you want to raise this tax because that is an unknown. So we have no option, this is the last and final option.
Griffin: Right now. Yes
Harrison: I can tell you last year having been on the board 365 days ago I was extremely proud of the budget that was put together. It was a balanced budget, we had surplus in it, it looked good, we had growth plans, I was tickled.. at the rate that came in. It was still comparable to what we had the year before. If you'd have told me in September that the plant was going to pay a third of their taxes or whatever that number is come the end of January, honestly, when Ray called me and said Whew, the plant paid their taxes today but they only paid us X. So I said, is this a plan like they're paying us half now and half like in June, and it went downhill from there. And I'll be real honest, I'm glad I'm not sitting on that side of the room.. it's a bitter pill to swallow. Going from 365 days ago... to be at this point 1737 isn't enough. It's not. Period, to continue business as we were 365 days ago.
Citizen 2: Just out of curiousity, I've watched this thing from the last board to this one and I have seen many things released but I have never seen what we pay you... why is that?
Reynolds: It's out there, it's public information,
C2: No no no hang on a second, yes, there's information out there, but you're being paid in more than one way.
Reynolds: No. I have one salary allocated 75 percent to the hospital 25 percent to 501a and that's how I get paid. CFO sitting right here
C2: What do we pay him?
Reynolds: If you want me to tell em I'll tell em. I have no issue with that.
C2: Wait just a second here. You should have no problem with that because it's a (?) money, it's the taxpayers money. So we should know.
Reynolds: If you will fill out a public information request, I will have that to you the next day, send to my email address, public record request and I'll send it to you. I have no problem with that whatsoever. My salary has been the same since the day I was hired.
C2: And I have an issue with Pecan Plantation. That crap I don't understand
Hankins: That's off subject
Reynolds: The issue is the tax rate of 17.37
C2: I find this completely and totally....
Reynolds: If you want to be present in our next board meeting at 7:00, we'll present on the screen a YTD financial statement, income statement for Pecan Plantation.
C2: Ok, that's tonight.
Hankins That's an hour and twenty minutes from now
C2: Then, can anyone answer this question to me. You said it's off the subject but...Why is it that we have doctors that we pay that are there that we can't use as citizens of this county.
? You can use them.
C2: YOu can use them if they'll take you.
Harrison. that's the same problem with the doctors down here that aren't accepting new patients either.
Reynolds: That clinic that is out there is in a gated community is there primarily to serve the residents of Pecan Plantation. If you want to see them, contact them and either Dr Carpenter or one of the midlevels will see you. Related to the tax rate, that entity makes money for us. If it wasn't for that entity, your tax rate in Somervell County would be higher. It makes money
C2: I just think there's more work to do... rather than raise the taxes on the people, ther'es something else that can be done.
Griffin: I agree. But right now in the shape we're in because of EFH at this moment this is about the only thing that we can do to keep the hospital afloat. But you're right, there are other ways and other things that can be done but we ran out of time, budget.. this has to be done by October 1st.
C2: So what is the lowest dollar that you're talking? 1737 is the maximum
Griffin: 175 is the maximum, can only go up 8 percent. We can go lower but that would hurt us financially and jeopardize ability to keep doors open
Reynolds: Based on value of plant. .. we have taken well over 1 1/2 million dollrars in cost out of operation because of what EFH is doing.
Griffin: We've taken away their health care and retirement benefits.
? Some of us have a couple of jobs to keep us afloat.. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name
C2: Donna
? I've never seen you at board meetings so I wonder where you're getting all your information.
C2: I actually watch the videos
? Okay, good, that's why I was just curious. Not a problem
C2: I just honestly have watched this whole.. I would not have came to the first board meeting because it was chaos... from the beginning and there's no way I would have been involved in that, that's too much chaos.
Hankins: You're telling me
? As employess, we're very proud of the hospital and work very hard, we had no choice but to suck it up and deal with the board we had. We didn't get a choice other than voting. And some of us don't live in this county ... I don't know what to say
Reynolds: I think that board started out very chaotically, I think if you look at the last year of that board, the board did a very good job. And I really mean that, I believe that.
C2: You believe the last board, not this one, you believe they did a really good job.
Reynolds: I think towards the end of their 2 year term
C2: I think they gave up.I had one neighbor to tell me he gave up
Reynolds: I don't think our business.. we're way off subject on this. It's a complex business, it's different than any other business Ask the board members, it takes a little while to understand how hospitals work and I think that board, most of the members of that board made a real effort and they succeeded and did a good job toward the end of their 2 year terms. I believe that.
C3: We came from a small town in South Texas, Houston, and we went through this same thing there, with hospital district. Growing pains with first 3 groups, and now it's one of the top rated hospital districts. I've seen what the people have to go through, build foundation, by no means are there any experts, I've seen it work.
C2: For a period of time, I've seen some underhanded deals.
C3: Then you live in a different town than I do..
C2: no ma'am I was born and raised in this town and my family goes back to the founders. There's no place for that either. Ron, you got something to say, say it out loud.
Hankins: Tell them who you are:
Griffin: I was asking who you were
C2: My name is Donna West Long. Does that help you?
Griffin: No, I still don't know who you are
C2: My mother was the first mayor of Somervell County. My great great grandfather was one of the founders of Glen Rose. And I take this all very personal
Reynolds: We do too. We're professionals. We're very proud of the works. We think we work with integrity and honesty
C2: Let me ask you this then. It bothered me that someone had somthing to say but they didn't want to say it in Glen Rose so they posted it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Why is that, Ron? Wasn't there something posted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Reynolds: Let me explain this.
C2: I asked Ron
Reynolds: Well, I'll explain it to you. Because we have a weekly newspaper here and we have very specific deadlines that we have to meet. And we did not have the time to meet the deadlines by putting it in a weekly newspaper so we contacted our attorney and he said paper that has regular distribution in your county, Fort Worth Star-Telegram met that requirement and that's why we put the notices there.
C2: How long before this meeting did you know you had to get it done?
Reynolds: We could have done it.
C2: YOu bet you could
Reynolds: We chose not to do it because we were trying to figure out if we were going to get any answer from Luminant
C2: But the bottom line (continued under next video section)
