Board increases WATCH funding
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 16, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Chairman Joe Daughtery speaks during a meeting of the Wayne County Board of Commissioners Wednesday afternoon.
Wayne County commissioners by a 5-2 margin Wednesday afternoon increased funding by $35,000 for Action Teams for Community Health (WATCH).
They did so despite some lingering concerns over how clients are screened to avoid abuse and unanswered questions as to who is responsible for indigent care in the county.
The sticking point is a clause in the 1985 contract that transferred all of the assets of what had been a county owned hospital to the nonprofit organization that now owns and operates the hospital.
According to that contract the hospital is responsible for providing indigent care as defined by county commissioners.
County Manager George Wood used that to argue against increasing the funding from $110,000 to $145,000, at least until the issue is resolved.
He also hinted that there are ongoing talks with hospital officials.
Last year the board at first threatened to eliminate funding in the budget before finally settling on cutting it in half from $220,000 to $110,000. Commissioners also told WATCH to look for other funding.
At the board's June 7 budget hearing WATCH officials asked for at least $165,000 in order to continue operation of the agency's mobile clinic.
Commissioner Wayne Aycock, who made the motion during the board's Wednesday budget workshop, and Commissioners John Bell, Joe Gurley, Ed Cromartie and Ray Mayo voted for the increase.
Chairman Joe Daughtery and vice chairman Bill Pate voted no.
The board is expected to give final approval to the budget on Tuesday.
Daughtery, who in recent years has led a campaign to reduce, with an eye to eliminating county funding for nonprofit organizations, said he would discourage the board from changing its position on WATCH.
WATCH is a nonprofit that was created through Wayne Memorial Hospital primarily to handle indigent care, even though it may have evolved into something else, he said.
"We are going in the wrong direction in my opinion," Daughtery said. "I feel like we need to leave this at $110,000, and still reach out and encourage them to find other sources of revenue."
WATCH is not screening its clients and not asking for co-pays or donations, Daughtery said.
If it asked each client for $10, it could raise enough money to cover the deficit WATCH is asking taxpayers to cover, he said.
"I do not think it is fair for taxpayers to start funding free medical care in this county, which is in essence what WATCH is asking us to do," Daughtery said.
However, Gurley, who sits on the hospital and WATCH boards, said commissioners last year had probably cut WATCH "unfairly."
"Sitting on the board of directors at the hospital I understand the magnificence of health care and how it helps the community," he said. "Sitting on the WATCH board, I understand the importance of community support and community funding. Without that community support and community funding you have to get outside help from endowments, grants, etc., pharmaceuticals, etc."
Just as importantly is that WATCH helps relieve pressure on the county's EMS service, Gurley said.
Mayo disagreed with Daughtery that taxpayers are losing money by supporting WATCH.
"We have seen information that WATCH can do it for less than a third of the cost that the emergency room can do it," Mayo said. "The taxpayer is going to foot the bill for this one way or the other."
The taxpayer is coming out ahead because WATCH is providing the service for less, he said.
"It is an investment for the taxpayers of Wayne County," he said. "But on the bottom line, I want somebody to show me how it is not saving the taxpayer money.
"If nothing else, I think it would give us a feather in our cap and more good will if we do move it to $145,000. You are not really talking about that much money here."
Mayo said he has been assured the money would go to the WATCH van and possibly extend hours and get it to more areas of the county.
"The van is very important to the overall WATCH organization, and that is why I am for it," he said.
Cromartie asked Wood if he had, at some point, determined that he could recommend more than the $110,000.
"I recommended the $110,000 for two things," Wood said. "One, we never have resolved this whole issue of the indigent care in that contract dating to '85.
"WATCH by definition is a program for people who cannot pay their bills. Now, I don't know what everybody else's definition of indigent is. But my definition of indigent is that you can't pay the bills. So not having resolved that, I am not prepared to say that we should do anything more until we get that issue resolved is No. 1."
The second issue is a mishandled a $50,000 minority health grant WATCH had with the Wayne County Health Department, he said.
WATCH lost the grant because it did not fill out the paperwork, he said.
"In my view, they could have kept the grant if they had worked with the health department," Wood said. "So I have a hard time giving somebody more money from the county treasury when they could have had a contract with the health department that would have given them another some $50,000, which is more than the $30,000 something you are talking about giving them now.
"So for those two reasons, I did not see a reason to go up. My recommendation to you would be that you wait about any decision about taking this up until we try to get this issue resolved about the whole issue of indigent care. As you all know, we have some discussions going back and forth now. I would just recommend that you hold off on it and see what we come up with."
After the issue is resolved the board could still add the $35,000, Wood said.
Cromartie at first suggested tabling the issue after questioning how WATCH was able to have a clinic at the Goldsboro Family YMCA.
But Wood said that in fairness to WATCH that he had spoken with its officials who told him the Y provides the space free of charge. Likewise, the hospital provides space on its campus as well, he said.
There may be no cost to the site, but somebody has to be there to provide the service, Cromartie said.
What they are saying is that they could not handle all of the work flow at the hospital location, Wood said.
Bell said he did not mind funding WATCH, but that he was bothered by a lack of guidelines as to who it serves.
"I know people who make a good salary, and they use WATCH," he said. "That is the only hang-up that I have because I know what the WATCH van is supposed to be doing and who they are supposed to be servicing.
"But they have people making a decent salary that they don't even bother to check. You show up as a patient, and they service you. That is unfair and to come and ask us for money and commissioners up here can go and use WATCH, that is not fair."
Wood said he has also addressed that issue with WATCH officials.
"They are telling me, and I am not refuting what you are saying John, they are telling me that now they run everybody through their system they have for everybody else to verify their ability to pay," Wood said.
His comments elicited chuckles from several board members.
Pate said he wasn't saying that the amount would not be increased at some point, but that he agreed with Wood.
When the contract was signed in 1985 that should have taken the county taxpayers out of the medical business, Pate said.
"It should have been a hospital function from that point on," Pate said.