By:Nick Buglione
Fourteen of the 15 board members showed up for the meeting, a larger-than-usual turnout most likely attributable to a recent state comptroller-s report that criticized the board-s inactivity and high rate of absenteeism.
With new leadership in place, the board appears to have a renewed commitment to turning things around at the Nassau Health Care Corporation, which has been losing millions of dollars every year since its 1999 creation and, with only $16 million in cash reserves, is scheduled to run out of money by the end of the year, according to Chief Financial Officer Gary Bie.
The corporation will run out of cash by the end of the year with its $25 million pension payment in December, Bie said. It-s possible we can run out before that.
At the meeting, Kane asked the board to authorize him to use the independent, county-commissioned study on the corporation, released earlier this year and often referred to as the Manatt or Kalkines report, as a road map to financial recovery. There are some recommendations that clearly make sense, said Kane, attending his first board of directors meeting since he was appointed to head the corporation a month ago. There are some that make less sense.
Though the measure passed, some board members expressed reservations about giving Kane carte blanche to adopt whatever he wants in the report without the board-s input. In this resolution, you have not identified the points you agree with specifically, said board member Dr. Marilyn Robertson. I personally feel I need to be informed on what items you are advocating.
Kane and board Chairman Lawrence Gottlieb insisted, however, that this resolution does not seek blanket approval of the report, and that the new leader will continue to actively seek the board-s input. I think the biggest mistake we could make is giving specific power on specific matters to Dr. Kane, Gottlieb said, because in those instances you would limit what he could do.
The acting president and CEO did offer some insight into what items in the report he would like to see implemented. Among the most significance was selling the run-down, 889-bed A. Holly Patterson nursing home and moving its residents to East Meadow-s NUMC campus, a measure that passed 10-2. The sale of the property could generate as much as $70 million for the corporation, which in addition to the nursing home and NUMC, runs seven community health clinics throughout the county.
Kane is also interested in setting up subsidiary corporations to run A. Holly Patterson and the community health clinics and to set up a substance abuse rehabilitation center at NUMC.
The board also OK-d the corporation-s entering into a stabilization agreement with the county that will work out some of the contradictory and vague aspects of the county and public benefit corporation-s 1999 contract, like reimbursements for inmate care at the Nassau County jail.
In a move that could save the corporation $26 million and possibly prevent it from running out of money, the board also voted to refinance its $256 million debt on the state bonds issued to finance its creation.
Finally, the board voted to affirm that former president and CEO Richard Turan had the authority to grant $666,000 in pay raises to top corporation officials, which State Comptroller Alan Hevesi argued, in his audit, should not have been allowed, because the full board never OK-d them.
