Citizens of Benton County
I am writing in response to the many statements and insinuations that Virginia Gay Hospital has not been transparent with use of state grant and county funds.
Budget information was presented to the Board of Health on multiple occasions and reports were made on activities completed. Financial information was shared at the February 10th meeting.
The state grant money was separately approved by the Board of Health on an annual basis and completed activities were shared with the board. The board chairperson was the signatory for this agreement. These funds are also audited by the state of Iowa.
The hospital did terminate the agreement in March, not due to budget questions, but mainly due to the state combining the departments of Health and Human Services with the Department of Health and moving to population-based services, that, and the extra work during COVID had put a tremendous strain on staff.
The hospital has been supporting the current public health director on a weekly basis, at no cost to the taxpayers to learn required duties and provide structure to the position. Virginia Gay has provided services to the community for the last 100 years and feel obligated to do what is necessary to ensure these services and partnerships continue.
Respectfully,
Michele Schoonover, CEO
Virginia Gay Hospital
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Ms Schoonover has made it known in open meetings that she did not think to involve the Board of Health in determining spending priorities for local tax dollars that Virginia Gay received. State grant money was well accounted for as it is not dispersed without documentation, but county tax funds were dispersed without annual budgets on file. The Feb 10th budgets she references were not presented in a timely, proactive manner that involved discussion nor input from the Board of Health.
Furthermore, it is unclear to me why Virginia Gay wants to reenter into a contract to provide public health services, when she states that they stepped away for the above cited reasons. The county employs a well qualified public health administrator who had an exemplary 90 day performance review.
The Supervisors have also been made aware that Iowa Code states the Board of Health has jurisdiction over contracts regarding public and environmental health. As of right now, there is no Board of Health to participate in this contract discussion.
I look forward to the public meeting Nov 2nd.
Maggie Mangold, MD
Former chairperson of the Benton County Board of Health