Local Peyton Place

Local politics are interesting here this year. Let's see, since we moved here in late 2016 we are now on our 3rd sheriff. It's an elected position and only the first sheriff, who was in when we got here was actually elected. When that guy quit (thank God!) mid term (I'm not sure how long their elected term is for), the county council appointed the deputy sheriff. He worked a year or two, then he quit. Then the council appointed someone from outside our county to be the sheriff, until the next election cycle, which is this fall. He is still currently our sheriff and was running for the elected position, as well as one of the deputies is on the ballot. 

Then the current sheriff decided to drop out  of the race and I guess the deputy sheriff was talked into running, now, against the deputy. Then we just heard that a women, in her early 60's, wants to run for sheriff, but she didn't get on the ballot in time, so now we heard she is trying to gather signatures to get on the ballot. As far as we can tell none of them will be any good. In fact, the deputy running used to be a deputy in another county, where our insulation guy was a county council member and he told dh a couple years ago, when he became a deputy in our county, to get rid of him. He's bad news. Ugh.

I think part of why the current sheriff may not be running (that and apparently heath issues) is a missing woman case that has not been solved. His handling of it has stirred up quite a bit of controversy. She is presumed to have accidentally drowned in the river, but no body has ever been found. 

We also hear things about our little 25 bed county hospital over the last couple of years. Mr. Neighbor used to work there for several years, as an administrator, but quit due to he didn't like how things were being run. There's been a turnover in CEO and CFO of the hospital in the past several years, too. I think they are on their 4th CEO, from what I can gather. And we had heard of some exorbitant salary for one of the CEO's - he was getting paid $40,000 a month! Now there is NO ONE in this little county of 4200 people that needs to be earning $40,000 a month to run a small little hospital! 

This hospital is "nonprofit". It also gets taxpayer money in the form of a mill levy. Some of the hospital board of directors are voted on by the voting residents of the county, but that is not a paid position, from what we can tell. There are 9 board members, but I'm not quite certain how they all get the position. Apparently of of our county commissioners is always also assigned to be a board member. We only have 3 commissioners in our county and the one who was on the hospital board recently quit (quit the hospital board, not being a commissioner) and the other commissioner who got the position has not been to one meeting, not even via zoom.

I don't know the whole story, but this high paid CEO left and they promoted one of the staff PA's to CEO...but kept this prior CEO on as a "consultant" at $20,000 per month (again this is what we heard from a couple different people). Everyone is just like WTF?! Then we just recently heard this consultant earns that for 1 day a month of consulting. 

We just received a ballot in the mail, to vote for 3 "board of directors" out of 6 candidates. Who knows who to even pick and also to extend the mil levy for another 10 years (that comes out of our property taxes). One of the people on the ballot is the mother of that lady I was friends with (our old neighbors in town) but for whatever reason she and her dh dropped us as friends. Anyhow, her mom is running to be on the board. I can't imagine why - she's gotta be in her late 70's and quite honestly, the several times I had been around her and talked to her, she never struck me as the type that would be good for a position such as this.

Every little bit we ever hear (from different people) who know about this exorbitant amount of money going to this consultant is that something shady is going on, but no one knows what. No one on the hospital board will seem to explain the why of it. 

DH and I did a little digging. He found some meeting minutes online from the past couple of months (they meet monthly). Someone in the community was at the meeting and asked if the public/taxpayers could see the contract with this consulting company. He was told no, that they do not have to show it. Someone else commented this was already discussed last meeting and it's not up for discussion. Basically a few members of the board upset that it's being asked again. Then the notes say that one of the board members who was grumbling about it being asked for, then resigned at the end of the meeting.

I'm like they are non profit - tax exempt status, aren't they supposed to be transparent in their finances? I looked online to see if I could find their 990 forms filed each year. Nothing on their website (of course, though the other small hospital in the county to the north of us  has theirs available on their website). I found the past several years on the IRS website and took a look. The most recent one filed and available to view is from fiscal year ending 6/30/20, which they filed in Feb 2021. They started paying the "consulting firm" the year before. For this most recent year available to see they paid this firm $425,000.

Part of the reason I think there are some "in the know" who are questioning this is that the former CEO is the one who owns/president of this consulting firm. Also, listed as one of the consultants on their staff is the guy who was president before that. Just all seems a little fishy - especially since they won't answer people's questions as to what it's exactly for and why they are still needing it, several years later, here in 2022.....

We're voting no on extending the levy another 10 years. I'm sure it will pass, though. Most people have no clue and don't pay attention and on the ballot they word it as "this will not increase your property taxes". I consider an additional 10 years of taxes increasing my property tax bill.