County reneges on WATCH increase
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 22, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Wayne County Commissioner Bill Pate reads a motion Tuesday to approve the county's 2016-17 budget. The final budget motion was approved 4-3.
Wayne County commissioners Tuesday morning reneged on a promise made less than week ago to increase funding for Wayne Action Teams for Community Health (WATCH) by $35,000.
Commissioners John Bell and Ed Cromartie, who voted for the increase last week, reversed course, joining with Commissioners Bill Pate and Joe Daughtery to reduce the funding from $145,000 back down to the $110,000 originally recommended by County Manager George Wood.
Commissioners Wayne Aycock, Joe Gurley and Ray Mayo opposed the reduction.
The 2016-17 fiscal year budget was approved by the same 4-3 margin.
Lingering concerns over how WATCH screens clients and questions as to who is responsible for indigent care continue to be a sticking point for some commissioners.
A 1985 contract transferred all of the assets of what had been a county-owned hospital to a nonprofit organization that now owns and operates the hospital.
It includes a clause that the hospital is responsible for providing indigent care as defined by county commissioners.
Daughtery also objected to using tax dollars in light of what he called WATCH's failure to complete paperwork necessary to renew a $50,000 grant through the Wayne County Health Department.
The board is talking about just $35,000 when it needs to be looking at people and their well being instead, Mayo said.
"I have been sitting on this board for four and a half years," he said. "I have seen us spend $5 million, $4 million to $6 million more for an emergency radio system than we should over budget. I have seen a failed payroll system that we have never collected half a million dollars overpayment.
"But yet we are setting here penny-pinching $35,000, and what we are telling the citizens of Wayne County who use WATCH -- we don't care if you get health care. Go to the emergency room. We are willing to pay more if you go to the emergency room. Go ahead. We are not going to fund WATCH. They can do it for one-third the cost than the hospital can."
The county can build a new convention center and an Advanced Manufacturing Center, but sometimes wouldn't "it be nice to touch the citizens on the streets where they live?" Mayo said.
Bell and Cromartie said after the meeting that no one had lobbied them to change their votes. Both said they had simply thought about the contract and ongoing negotiations between the county and hospital.
Cromartie said he would like to see all of that settled and then the board could revisit funding including an increase if needed.
Wood confirmed he has met one time with hospital officials concerning the contract and indigent care. He declined further comment other than that the discussions are continuing.
Pate made the motion to approve the new budget along with changes made during recent work sessions with the exception of increasing WATCH funding.
But it wasn't until after Gurley asked Pate to restate his motion that some commissioners appeared to realize that it had included the WATCH funding.
"I thought we voted last week to increase funding to $145,000," Gurley said.
"That is correct, however, this motion, as I understand your motion, would revert back to the $110,000," Daughtery said.
Pate asked County Attorney Borden Parker if the motion was allowable. It is, Parker said.
Aycock then offered an amendment to leave the funding at $145,000.
"I agree," Mayo said. "We voted at the last commissioners' meeting to fund WATCH so I don't really see a reason to go back unless we are going to look at all of them (nonprofits)."
The amendment failed 4-3 with Aycock, Gurley and Mayo voting for it.
Aycock called the vote not funding WATCH as had been agreed on last week a "great injustice" against county residents.
Aycock said he was not saying there is no abuse, but that there are so many people who depend on the agency's services.
Gurley attempted to ask a question on Pate's original motion, but was told by Daughtery that he had called for the vote. However, he relented when Gurley and Mayo reminded him he had said there would be discussion.
"So, we changed the funding that we promised to WATCH," Mayo said. "I am going back to this, the negotiations that are going on between the hospital and county. As far as indigent care is concerned it does not have a thing in the world to do with what WATCH is doing. This should be looked at as a separate issue. The key is that as was mentioned the funding from the county, I was told by several board members at WATCH, goes to the WATCH van.
"People sitting on this board today voted a week ago to refund WATCH because 'the WATCH van is not seen in my neighborhood.' Now all of a sudden we are back to $110,000. Well, if that's the case. The vote was taken. That is fine. But I am tired of hearing people (on the board) complain that the WATCH van is not in their community. I don't want to hear that any more because we have an opportunity to possibly have added another day for the WATCH van for the people of Wayne County, and we didn't do it. We reneged on our promise."
"I am not going to continue this back and forth debate on WATCH and budget," Gurley said. "I learned years ago not to debate a subject when the people you are debating with are unarmed."
Daughtery said he was "perplexed" to have board members who are expanding the role of county government to use tax dollars to provide health care.
"That is not the role of Wayne County government," he said. "The second problem that I have is that WATCH is a nonprofit organization that was created (by the hospital) to limit the use of the emergency room. That was the primary use. Its goal and its mission were to provide health care to those individuals that did not have health insurance."
He reiterated concerns about WATCH's handling of the Health Department grant.
"Their reason was that they did not want to fill out the paperwork," he said. "If you are not going to fill out the paperwork, then don't complain because you didn't get the $50,000. But yet immediately thereafter they come to this board and asked us to take tax dollars, our local tax dollars, and give them our local tax dollars to supplement their funding.
"There is something wrong here, and I oppose us taking our dollars that we need to be investing in schools, that we need to be investing in the mission of our county, and those things that are required of Wayne County to provide which is not health care. It is not. WATCH is a great organization. They are providing a great service, but it is not the mission of Wayne County government to take tax dollars and fund WATCH."