Note: The problems at Singing River Health System (Jackson County) continue to mount. The Sun-Herald has been breaking stories about the troubled hospital system since November. It is important to start from the beginning, so JJ is posting stories about this fiasco starting from several weeks ago, to give readers the history of this story.
Paul Hampton raised questions in the Sun-Herald on December 8 about the information about the Singing River Health System finances that was given to its Board of Trustees. Mr. Hampton reported:
Two boards have at least some control over the Singing River Health System, but none of them say they saw the financial problems coming.
Individual Jackson County supervisors appoint one member each to the nine-member SRHS Board of Trustees and the entire Board of Supervisors appoints two at-large members, one from the east side of the county and one from the west. The hospital chief of staff and chief of staff-elect also sit on the SRHS board.
But the supervisors said they only get infrequent reports from the hospital board, which by law is responsible for "operating and governing" the hospital. Reporters are barred from meetings by an exemption to the Open Meetings Act.
In March, officials announced the system was carrying $88 million in uncollectable debt and calling it operating income. Then, the system announced it had quit funding the pension plan in 2009, that it is now failing and would have to be revamped....
SRHS board President Michael Heidelberg said the board had monthly meetings where the CEO reports on the operations of the system but weren't told of problems.
"Basically, he is in charge of the running of the hospital," he said. "We in turn are in charge of overseeing that administration."
He said the trustees are willing to answer questions anytime the supervisors have them.
"In fact I'm in the Rotary with (Mike) Magnum and one of the other supervisors and anytime they have a question and they see me at the Rotary club, they'll walk up and ask me about it," he said. "But as far as making a monthly or yearly report, we have our financials sent to them ... we don't make a personal report from our board to their board."
Heidelberg said he didn't know there was any problem with the retirement plan until about a 1 1/2 months ago when (SRHS CEO) Kevin Holland asked me to attend one of those meetings....
(Supervisor) Melton Harris appointed Ira Polk, a former Moss Point mayor, who Harris said saw nothing wrong with the hospital.
"My conversation with him after all this began to break was they were somewhat mislead, they were being fed false information," Harris said. "They were acting on information that was not complete."
Harris said it is unknown if this was intentional. "We are going back and trying to review and find something that will lead us in one direction or the other," he said.
Board of Supervisors President Troy Ross hopes Raymond James, a firm with expertise in strategic planning for hospitals, can help them find a way out of the mess.
And, Ross said, supervisors are talking to hospital trustees a whole lot more since news of financial problems surfaced.
"Until that day," he said, "the numbers provided in the audit showed revenue."
He said there was no reason for Lawrence Cosper, the business owner Ross appointed to the hospital board, to raise red flags for supervisors.
"My impression is they received the same audits we received," he said. "I would think those trustees had the same numbers I had and saw and they were given the impression that they were healthy as well. Now where the numbers got crossed and who caused it, that's what we need to find out.
"We have a CPA on that board (vice president Michael Tolleson) and the former CEO (Chris Anderson) was a CPA. I would have thought someone there would have figured out how these numbers, they should have been adjusted."
He said other CPAs have told him that short of a full forensic audit of the system, there would be no way to know the numbers were off.
Their goal, he said, is to find if "someone did it for a purpose or was someone just not doing their job properly.".... Rest of article. There is more to read.
Earlier Singing River posts:
Cartoon on Singing River
Singing River Saga, December 5: Judge freezes pension liquidation.
Adding more pieces to the Singing River puzzle
Singing River on December 3: Liquidate Pension Plan
Singing River Pension Disaster: No excuses
Singing River audit
Singing River: 23 days cash on hand, Supes want to question MBMC CEO
What the hell was going on at Singing River?
18 comments:
Why isn't any other news source reporting anything about this? Thanks KF for keeping us informed.
The coast media is. Sun-Herald and Gulf Live are all over it. Media in Jackson is not really covering the story though.
Thanks KF for providing coverage of this matter.There will be plenty of discussion and coverage once all of the coast delegation gets back to Jackson this week according to an article in today's SunHerald.Look for an attempt to open all public hospitals to scrutiny by all. The SRHS board of trustees is currently under assault as they should be, with the first one resigning this past week. Morris Strickland was discovered to be living outside of the county for the last four years and serving on this board contrary to the law.The JCBOS was aware and took no action until the local press jumped on them.Strickland also admitted to what appears to be voting in the wrong county or as some would say voter fraud.Also one of the JCBOS members credited Strickland with personally directing the pension fund investments. All to bizarre.Lots of conflicts rumored to be going on between trustees,outside council and select medical staff.Much to be discovered for sure
Wait til you find out about the bot attorney who is a business partner with morris strickland and likely knew Morris was breaking the law and did nothing. This is the same bot attorney who does business with the hospital as do his sons. Wait til you find out how much the administrators are getting paid.
Wait til you find out about the supervisor who appointed Morris and that he admitted knowing that Morris was breaking the law for 6 months....
Even convicted felon Scott Walker,who now resides in prison,is somehow involved with a contract to do clean the dirty laundry. This will be some twisted story when there finally is a forced telling of the facts in this matter. Look for Ole Miss to be mentioned often.Just as in the Pascagoula Indian tale about the Singing River, some will be singing soon. Whistle blowers to the front please.
The only thing the media in Jackson gives a damn about is perpetuating the status quo. Kingfish being a sometimes exception.
they keep talking about CPA's and financial firms looking at the books and not saying anything. Seems to me the problem was someone at the hospital arbitrarily decided to quit sending the money to the retirement fund that they were supposed to. Not rocket science. Why didn't the retirement people ever say 'hey, where's the check this month?'
EVERY AUDIT THE SUPERVISORS GOT FROM 2010 ON SHOWED THAT THE HOSPITAL WAS PUTTING NOTHIN NG IN THE RETIREMENT PLAN
2:13 I am still waiting for the marine resources boat fleet log. The Sun Herald went to court for full disclosure of the records, yet we have not a word on the people using those boats and why.
Just like a filing flight planes for a jet, every time one of those boats left the dock there had to be a detailed record kept. It is safe to assume they were leaving the dock full of gas, loaded with food and beverage and we were paying for that.
The legislatures, good old boy deal makers, arrogant marketing and pr firm managers, pay to play schmoozers, friends, family and fan club make up a long and illustrious of who was using them.
The logs need to be printed word for word. Everyone who took trips needs to be held accountable. Why is the Sun Herald not publishing that?
Scott Walker and Ziegler (Billy Hewes' brother-in-law) are the tip of the iceberg. It is common knowledge that Hewes was on an oversight committee that created a position that did not previously exist, appointing Ziegler to it . Not a word about that either.
Hell you have both Chancery Clerks in Harrison and Jackson up to their asses in alligators.
Singing River is just one piece of the puzzle of vast corruption. The FBI is going to need loaners from other field offices just to keep up!
Five months from now all this shit will be buried six feet deep under other crap that floats to the top. And five months after that all that shit will be buried six feet deep under other crap....
Mississippi remains last in nearly everything because the corrupt good ol' boy MSGOP machine wouldn't have it any other way.
"Five months from now all this shit will be buried six feet deep under other crap that floats to the top. And five months after that all that shit will be buried six feet deep under other crap...."
Um, no. Five months from now people who retire from Singing River will find they have no pension check coming. They will not forget this mess, even if you do.
"Mississippi remains last in nearly everything because the corrupt good ol' boy MSGOP machine wouldn't have it any other way."
Just a quick reminder - Mississippi was last in nearly every category for the 100 previous years when the Dems firmly controlled the governor's office and the State senate and the house of reps. Take your political distractions elsewhere.
We need to weed out crooks and incompetents from either party.
The corrupt Dems left that party for membership in the MSGOP when it became clear that the Republicans were now conducting the government contract gravy train.
@ 9:00. The good folks who retire from Singing River and their personal handwringing (to which they will be entitled) will not affect the legislature, investigations or how quickly all this shit disappears.
I seem to recall thousands of similar sufferers holding their retirement pamphlets from World Com. Only one fellow went to jail and it all went away.
With the lawsuits piling up Chris Anderson will be smoked out very soon from his hiding place at Baptist.As of yesterday he and others have been named individually as defendants in multiple federal and state lawsuits. He will have to pay the cost of his own legal defense using the lump sum payment he received from the SRHS when he departed. While he may never be charged with a crime he is sure to expend lots of money. All because he refused to help resolve these matters. Many want his hide and by gerge I believe they will get it.How long will Baptist keep him in hiding?
ooops!
www.sunherald.com/2015/01/06/6003815_srhs-trustee-has-two-homestead.html
Hey KF
Check out page 14 "Certain Subpoenas and Other Matters" http://emma.msrb.org/EA654657-EA512437-EA908608.pdf
Media report without the EMMA link.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/records-on-ex-chairman-samson-united-airlines-sought-in-probe-of-port-authority-1.1304861
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