I support Scott Dilley as our next Public Hospital District Commissioner for Hospital District 2, At Large Position 2. I have attended many meetings of the hospital board and have spoken to several Public Hospital District Commissioners and done considerable research in the area of Public Hospital Districts and of this hospital.

Scott Dilley correctly criticized the hospital board for not being open, honest and transparent regarding the district’s computer attack. When the Seattle School District had a similar attack, officials immediately came out and informed the public. They said their computer systems have been attacked, they were working with authorities and they could make no further comment at that time. This is all the hospital district needed to do to be open, honest and transparent with the public.

Scott Dilley also went after the hospital for cutting jobs and outsourcing the work. Again, he is correct for doing this. I was at a meeting where the Former CFO told the board they were $14,000,000.00 behind in billing. He also said the billing department was down 7 employees out of 21 employees of that department. Later, the Hospital laid off the remaining 14 billing department employees and outsourced their jobs. This was prior to the independent consulting firm of Navigant coming on board.

KeyBank tried working with the Grays Harbor Community Hospital, a private non-profit 501c3 corporation for many months if not longer in an attempt to get them current on a bond debt of $34 million. The hospital failed to make the necessary payments. This does not even take into account that t he hospital also had a line of credit with the Bank of the Pacific for $3,500,000 that they were delinquent on. The Bank of the Pacific closed off that line of credit as well. The taxpayers have been paying a minimum of $2.3 million dollars a year since 2015 in taxes. We have also been saddled with a $38.2 million bond until year 2049. The cost of the bond service escalates with time. This is the largest bond I can recall in this area that was issued without a vote of the people. This bond was created by the Public Hospital District to pay off the debt of the Private Non-Profit 501c3 Corporation. This year, within six months of the bond being issued to get the Private Non-Profit 501c3 corporation out of debt, it requested a line of credit from the Community Hospital Foundation and have borrowed another $600,000.

Let’s take a real look at the last three years: $3 million dollar loss for year 2016, $8 million dollar loss for year 2017 and a $12.4 million dollar loss for year 2018. Every time someone questions the finances of the hospital, they circle the wagons and blame “payer mix.” While that is a big issue, the bigger issue is the failure of upper management! The worker bees at the hospital are fantastic! We need Community Hospital to survive for the safety and health of our citizens and keep workers employed. The only way Community Hospital will survive for our community is to change the direction and course the hospital is on.

Scott Dilley will work for our citizens and represent us well in all areas of the hospital district. He will not be afraid to ask the tough questions and will work to repair the damage that has been done. Scott Dilley is also for open, honest and transparency of the hospital district to its citizens. Scott Dilley wants a “Healthy” Grays Harbor Community Hospital. This is why I fully support and encourage people to vote for Scott Dilley, Grays Harbor Public Hospital District #2, At Large Position 2

Dale Hensley

Aberdeen