Hospital holdup, Commissioners to decide on hospital levy on Aug. 20
The Weston County commissioners will discuss at their next meeting, Aug. 20, whether to ask voters on the November ballot to continue providing the Weston County Hospital District with an additional three mills in funding, Chairman Don Taylor told the News Letter Journal in a text on Aug. 12.
Approval of tax mill levy requests was an item on the agenda for the Aug. 6 commissioners meeting, but the hospital board’s treasurer, Kari Drost, said the commissioners postponed the decision until their next meeting because the hospital’s CEO, Cathy Harshbarger, was sick and unable to attend the Aug. 6 meeting.
The hospital is currently approved to receive three mills, but the hospital can ask voters every four years to approve up to an additional three mills. This year, one mill for Weston County is about $194,500.
Commissioner Ed Wagoner said at the Aug. 6 meeting that he was informed the board could approve the option of the mill levy without hospital representatives being present, and Clerk Becky Hadlock said commissioners could pass a resolution for the request to go on the ballot.
“The hospital was just going to come and ask, just visit with the board to say that they were going to pass that resolution for it to go on the ballot,” Hadlock said. “That’s all this resolution was.”
The hospital first requested a raise from three mills to six mills in 2008, and the request has been on the general election ballot, for the public’s approval, every four years, she said.
The ballot proposition was approved 2,029-1,380 in the 2020 election, according to official results on the county’s website. On the 2020 ballot, voters were asked, “Shall the Weston County Hospital District continue the District’s mill levy at the current six (6) mills; which was increased from three (3) mills in a special election in 2008 and continued in the general election in 2016, to continue to provide funding to support the Weston County Hospital, the Weston County Manor and Weston County Home Health?”
Drost said the proposition has been approved every time it has been voted on, but Wagoner said he wanted to hear “what the hospital has to say” before the commissioners make the decision, and Taylor agreed.
Former county commission chair and newly elected hospital board member Ted Ertman brought the matter to the Weston County Hospital District board’s July 25 meeting, informing his fellow board members that the board must request that the county commissioners add a ballot request on behalf of the hospital to secure the additional three mills.
According to the county’s website, a mill levy is the amount in taxes that a property owner needs to pay per $1,000 of assessed value, and commissioners decide the total mill levy per tax district based on what taxing entities, such as the hospital district, in the district’s boundaries request for their budgets.