March 22, 2016
- By Paul Joseph, Paragon Communications News Director -
Sayre is set to repeal the city 1-cent hospital tax.
Now that the hospital is sitting idle with all of its furnishings sold by the bond holder, Sayre voters will get the opportunity to decide whether they want to stop paying the extra cent in sales tax to pay help for it.
Last week at their regular session, the Sayre Council approved two agenda items associated with the one cent sales tax. Council members approved an ordinance that provides for the repeal and cancelation of the tax and approved a resolution that set a June 28 election for the purpose of allowing voters to repeal the tax.
Sayre Mayor Eddie Tom Lakey says the tax – that was originally approved overwhelmingly by voters three years ago – has continued to be collected the last few weeks even though the hospital closed its doors early last month, on February 1.
Sayre voters approved their one-cent city sales tax in April of 2013 that ear-marked the penny for subsidizing Sayre Memorial Hospital. The vote was approved by a healthy margin, 87% yes to 13% no, and went into effect July 1 of 2013 with no sunset.
The decision to close the hospital was made by the Sayre Memorial Hospital Board of Directors during a meeting in late January, according to the Mayor but, he says, they really had little choice after hospital bond holders decided they couldn’t negotiate any more on bond repayments.
In April of 2014, The City of Sayre approved taking out a loan of $2-million-dollars for the hospital. The loan was for a couple of purposes. One was to build the new surgery center at the hospital and keep the hospital running until it becomes profitable. The first materialized late last year, the second hadn’t yet materialized.
Lakey says the city has exhausted all possible leads for the hospital, but the bonding company may be working behind the scenes that he’s unaware of.
But, as far as the city is concerned, the hospital will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
The hospital has been under a management agreement with Rural Community Hospitals of America (RCHA) out of Columbia, Missouri since the fall of 2013. One of their main jobs was to build and maintain a healthy relationship with the hospital’s bond holders and, in the beginning; they were successful in helping to coax the bond holder to renegotiate the bonds making it easier for the hospital to pay them off.
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