Our View

Our View

City still dealing with ill e_ects of defunct hospital

We assume everyone has heard the age-old phrase “The gift that keeps on giving,” but how about an old hospital that just won’t stop causing so much financial pain to the taxpayers of Crittenden County?

For over two years now Crittenden Regional Hospital shuttered its doors, shoving scores of employees onto the street, created a major void in providing primary care and left taxpayers holding the bag for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just when we thought the end of the financial hemorrhaging may have subsided we learn just the other day the West Memphis Utility commissioners are having to write off a whopping $150,000 in utility bills former CRH management and all those board members overseeing the hospital’s operation simply didn’t pay.

During a recent West Memphis Utilities Commission meeting commissioners overseeing the city’s privatelyowned utility were told by Utility Manager John Rimmer there is no hope of recovering the $150,000 that the former hospital management failed to pay, nor is there any recovery from the hospital’s bankruptcy.

Oh, but that was just part of the utility write-offs for the second half of 2014. The amount of uncollected utility bills for that period totaled nearly $350,000.

That sum combined with semi-annual write-off for city customers done earlier in the year amounted to a grand total of over $800,000 for 2014.

This hospital write-off is certainly disheartening and West Memphis Utility customers and taxpayers should raise some interesting questions such as, how far in arrears did this hospital account get before the “red lights” began flashing? Was there any effort made on the part of the utility management to bring this account up to date prior to the hospital shuttering its doors?

Bear in mind, this financial loss to the utility, its ratepayers and the taxpaying citizens of West Memphis occurred prior to Crittenden County assuming responsibility of the building following its closure. During the time the county took over the closed hospital the county paid West Memphis Utilities tens of thousands of dollars to provide complete services to the facilities, and in fact, overpaid the account up until the county turned it over to the state Department of Corrections which is currently using the old hospital as a women’s rehabilitation center.

Now, as far as the other issues regarding utility writeoffs, we’re told recent changes have resulted in the shut-off policy becoming more efficient.

Commissioners were told that there is now an employee dedicated to timely disconnections whereas in the past shut-offs were performed on a less strict timeline going as long as three months or longer past due.

There is certainly no one objecting to taking into account special circumstances or instances where there are medical situations but we seriously doubt there are that many residents that fall into these categories. We suspect the majority of “no-pays” are customers who simply had no intention of taking care of their responsibilities.

There have been many recommendations and suggestions as to dealing with these freeloaders but, unfortunately when there is suspicion that political pressure is applied and accusations of discrimination are made rules and policies are compromised.

Unfortunately when this occurs everyone suffers the consequences. Let us put the situation this way and say that if this wasn’t a city utility, such intolerance would not exist.