Boulder City Hospital says tax money needed

Voters are told denial could mean closure

Sunday, July 27, 2008 | 2 a.m.

For a time, the private hospital in Boulder City needed public financial assistance to expand. Now it needs tax revenue just to keep the doors open.

Boulder City Hospital Chief Executive Tom Maher says getting assistance for the 67-bed hospital is urgent.

City voters will decide in November whether to pay additional property taxes to support the hospital. A ballot question will ask residents to pay 15 cents per $100 of assessed property value. The tax would be $105 yearly for someone owning a home with a taxable value of $200,000.

Only Boulder City residents would pay the tax.

“We’re treating this election as our 11th hour,” Maher said last week.

He said that after a review of the hospital’s finances and their estimated effect on its future bond rating, plus the cost of financing building improvements, it’s been determined that without making any significant cuts to services the hospital would be forced to close in 2012.

So Maher is in the unenviable position of trying to persuade people to vote themselves a tax increase during an economic slump.

“I’m trying to educate them,” Maher said. “We’re not like a retail business. We’re part of the service infrastructure of the community, like police or schools ... Whoever comes in, we have to deliver services and try to get payment later.”

The first in a series of public meetings to discuss the tax will be held Wednesday in the Boulder City Library. Hospital officials will also meet with local organizations.

It would not be the first private hospital in Nevada to have its own tax district. Eight formerly private hospitals in the state now have tax districts. Most of them are in rural sections of Northern Nevada.

Boulder City’s district, which would be run by the Clark County Commission, would be the first in the county.

If approved, the tax would raise about $750,000 for the hospital, which has a $19 million annual budget.

The money would be used to update facilities, recruit specialists and serve patients who now seek those services in Henderson or Las Vegas. By offering additional services, the hospital hopes to increase its revenue.

High on the list is a $1 million magnetic resonance imaging machine. The hospital also would like to attract doctors. It does not have pediatricians, pulmonologists or a full-time cardiologist.

It’s unclear how voters are leaning on the issue.

“It crystallizes pretty quickly to, if we want to continue a hospital versus if we want” lower taxes, Councilman Travis Chandler said. “They are both valid points.”

Maher said if the measure fails, the hospital will try again in 2010. If it fails twice, the hospital could close.