$30M hospital bond to run again in general election
NANCE BESTON | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 7 months, 2 weeks AGO
Columbia Basin Hospital Chief Executive Office Rosalinda Kibby said the hospital needs to work on getting more information about an upcoming bond election to voters. Communication and low voter turnout are believed to be contributing factors to the bond’s failure during the primary.
NANCE BESTON/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
EPHRATA – The Columbia Basin Hospital Board has decided to run its $30 million bond measure on the general ballot in November after it failed in the primary election.
Chief Executive Officer Rosalinda Kibby, during the Aug. 26 meeting, said the district needed to work on getting more information out to voters. She explained that the primary didn’t even get enough voters for the bond package to pass. They needed 2,600 voters, but only 2,277 people voted in Ephrata, according to the Grant County Auditor's results.
“The general election is going to be a lot more people going out to vote,” Kibby said. “There will be a lot of other things on the ballot, such as the mayoral race. I feel like we were disadvantaged because people saw that only one thing was on the ballot.”
There was discussion about sending out information in the mail, via text, MyChart and through a quarterly newsletter the board wants to start.
If approved by voters, the total property tax rate for the hospital district’s portion of landowners' tax bills would be $1.83 per $1,000 of assessed value. That $1.83 consists of three parts. The first is a roughly 60-cent portion covering the last bond in 2012, which is set to be paid off in 2035. The second would be the new bond, and the remainder would be the maintenance and operations levy that averages around 30 cents per $1,000. The three combined make that $1.83 figure.
Projections from the district’s accounting team show that the rate would go down each year through 2040, with the rate being $1.81 per $1,000 in 2027; $1.69 per $1,000 in 2030; $1.52 per $1,000 in 2035, and a drop to less than $1 per $1,000 of assessed value thereafter.
According to previous reporting, Kibby said the bond would add valuable resources to the community if passed. This includes adding a two-story addition to the current hospital’s family medicine wing. The first floor would extend the family medicine clinic. The second floor would be used as a flexible space with meeting rooms for public use. The second floor would also add rooms for specialist providers to visit the hospital to allow Ephratans to get care closer to home.
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