Clinic: 16.9-cent tax rate eyed

Rockdale’s going to get a new clinic. Rockdale may get a “new” property tax, too.

Members of the Rockdale Hospital District met Monday and voted unanimously to propose a 16.9-cent property tax to fund the district’s share of the new HealthPoint/CHI-St. Joseph’s Clinic in Suite B of the former Richards Memorial Hospital. Renovation is well underway.

PUBLIC HEARING—The hospital board will hold a public hearing on the proposed tax increase at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 15 at the Meadowbrook Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. “Members of the public are encouraged to attend and express their views,” Dick Burns, hospital board president, said.

OUTCRY—Hospital board members have been looking for signs of a public outcry to fuel an effort to persuade the Rockdale Municipal Development District (MDD) to surrender a half-cent sales tax once collected for health care, freeing the board from the necessity of re-imposing a property tax.

That property tax, which is in addition to city, school and county taxes—and would be a new tax on property owners—was originally collected from 2000 to 2007. It was once as high as 47 cents and has been at zero for 12 years.

Over the weekend there were public stirrings on social media chatter, and other publicity, bemoaning the lack of an emergency room, or hospital, in Milam County.

“It was a busy and sometimes dangerous night and early morning for some of our volunteers,” Rockdale Fire Chief Ward Roddam said on the RVFD Face-book site. “Having no hospital or emergency room in Milam County has got to be resolved.”

Patients are now taken to hospitals in Taylor, Temple or Bryan since hospitals in Rockdale and Cameron closed in December.

EMERGENCY—Hospital District board members view the new clinic as the first step toward getting some kind of emergency care back in the county.

“We’ve got to take one step at a time,” Burns said. “I certainly would be happy to see this as the start of getting more services at the hospital campus.”

“I can’t speak for St. Joseph’s and I’m not doing that now,” Eric Todd, clinical chief executive officer of Heath Point, told The Reporter. “But this (clinic opening) might be a step toward getting Suite A (east side of hospital building toward high school) to be the site for specialists and possibly even open an emergency room.”

But this first step comes with a price tag and some kind of tax.

(See editorial, page 5A).

ELECTION—The $200,000 annually to be raised locally is the biggest question hanging over the new clinic.

Burns has asked the City of Rockdale and MDD for help in giving up part of sales taxes they currently collect.

From 1994 to 2010 the hospital district collected a half-cent sales tax. In 2010, city voters created the MDD and allocated the sales tax to that entity. It has funded the MDD’s economic development efforts ever since.

The MDD has said even if it desired to transfer the sales tax to the hospital district it would first have to retire almost $900,000 in debt, incurred at the Rock-dale Industrial Park.

The development district also asked to meet directly with St. Joseph’s.

Burns rejected that request. “St. Joseph’s is not asking for the funding, the Rockdale Hospital Board is.”

“You know, this clinic will benefit Rockdale economically, too,” he said. “In addition to about 20 jobs, it’s also going to have a $2.2-million payroll.”

Burns said the board has exhausted its options in trying to reclaim the sales tax. “What has to happen would be for some group in the public to get a petition and formally ask the MDD to give up the sales tax to the hospital district.”

“We believe that could lead to an election in which the people could decide what they prefer,” he said.

CONSTRUCTION—“We are spending $245,000 on this renovation project,”Todd said.

Heath Point is affiliated with CHI-St. Joseph’s Hospital of Bryan. It manages and operates rural health clinics for the large, well-respected hospital, which has pledged to pick up $200,000 annually, half the yearly $400,000 tab, for the new clinic.

The other $200,000 is the responsibility of the Rock-dale Hospital District.

PROJECT—Suite B, which is being renovated, is a 5,000-square-foot building on the hospital campus. It faces Pecos Street on the northern side of the hospital.

The new clinic will be a primary care facility with a family physician, two physician assistants and a licensed professional counselor. The two PA’s worked at the Rockdale facility before Little River closed.

Todd said HealthPoint now estimates the clinic will open sometime in October as that primary care facility with 12 examination rooms and a small lab.

“Some simple lab work will be done right there and the rest will be picked up every day the work is performed and made available to the health care personnel,” he said.

There will be a central nurse’s station and the clinic will include a “tele-health” facility which will enable patients to conference with off-site professionals in a variety of areas.

He said between 3,000 and 4,000 new patients are anticipated.

Todd noted HealthPoint is a non-profit entity which operates as a Federally Qualified Health Center and is charged with providing quality health care to persons of all ages.

He noted that Rockdale’s only current health care facility does not accept patients under 12.

‘EFFICIENT’—Todd said since the facility falls under federal and state purview, it is charged with being efficient. “We will be checked by both federal and state agencies,” he said, noting that administrative costs are put at 6.9 percent.

“It’s because HealthPoint was operating so efficiently that we were asked by St. Joseph’s to run their clinics in several rural counties,” he said.

INTEREST—Burns, and RHD board member Karolyn Puccio expressed appreciation to CHI-St. Joseph’s for its interest in Rockdale’s health care situation.

“Over the years we have diligently sought out large health care operations in cities to try and help out the residents of the Rockdale area,” Burns said. “Shortly after the Little River Healthcare bankruptcy, which resulted in the closing of the hospital and clinics here, St. Joseph’s responded and we do appreciate that.”

“And they have agreed to pledge half the $400,000 per year towards the operation,” Puccio said. “There has, rightly, been a lot of focus on the $200,000 we have to raise locally. But don’t forget the $200,000 St. Joseph’s is going to contribute. They didn’t have to do that.”