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Show THE ZEPHYR AUGUST 1993 PAGE 4 F Facts and Opinions a summary of out-of-to- the month's news. st by Ken Davey low-inco- FACT The Allen Memorial Hospital Board has recommended that the Grand County Council go forward with a plan to institute a one percent sales tax to fund future health care. The 1993 session of the Utah State Legislature approved a bill giving rural counties authority to enact the tax, upon the approval of county voters. Earlier this year Kane County became the first to go for the tax when local residents overwhelmingly supported it at a special election. Here in Grand County, voters last year voted down extending the hospital district's property taxing power, throwing future funding for die facility into the hands of the county coundL Running a hospital, especially in rural areas, is invariably a money loser, requiring financial subsidies from local governments. Last winter the hospital received about a quarter of a million dollars from the property tax, which was used to offset operating losses at the facility. Current county property valuations will increase that amount to about $300,000 this year. Officials estimate a one percent sales tax would bring as much as a million dollars. OPINION So there I was, ranting and raving at the county council chairman, telling him over and over how substituting sales tax for property tax makes the poorest pay more and the richest pay less. The chairman stopped me just as I was reaching unplumbed depths tit venting spleen and he said to me, "Don't keep telling me how unfair it is, tell me what you think we should da" That shut me up good and quick. Because it's a lot easier to be critical of plans and proposals than it is to come up with positive alternatives. Health care is an essential element in the quality of life of a community, from the hedge against sickness and accidents of a functioning emergency room to the longterm benefits of y dinics, and diagnostic screenings and prevention regular physidan checkups, programs. And for rural communities across the nation, those programs are disappearing, as the cost of medical procedures goes up and the reimbursements from federal health programs dedine. That reality faced the hospital district three years ago, when the district board realized that more than half a million dollars in a special surplus fund had been eaten up in just a few years, and that a change was needed. The board asked for the resignation of the hospital administrator and hired Lutheran Health Services to run the facility, a move that resulted in resentment among the hospital staff over what they saw as heavy handed administrative tactics. The county commission listened to that resentment, and just less than a year later abolished the existing hospital board and fired LHS, eventually hiring Kim Hardman, the current administrator, and appointing a new board. And through the entire time, the public wondered and worried about the future of the well-bab- facility. A depleted physician staff grew by one, as Rand Waddingham moved to town, joining Robert Murray, Steve Rouser, and Jim Redd. And with Waddingham and Redd both doing obstetrics, it seemed the town was back on track in being able to have infant deliveries again an integral part of the local medical scene. But by winter Redd began talking about moving back to his home area of San Juan County, and a search for another physician fizzled at the last moment early this summer. Waddingham then decided to leave, dropping the physicians' ranks even lower. As a short term solution, the hospital contracted with a Provo medical firm to provide doctors far coverage Thursday evening through Monday at both the hospital and at the local medical clinic, a necessary but temporary measure at best. 24-ho- ur a major expansion and improvement of the During that same year, the hospital began scheduled to be completed in the first half of last year, hospital emergency room. But the work, the public confidence in the hospital district dragged on and on, piling up costs and eroding vote in November 1992 where permission for a was disaffection board. The culmination of that down. voted the district to continue a property tax levy was fell to the county commission, and a few months Responsibility for funding the hospital then later, to the county council, elected in February. At about the same time, the state legislature passed the law allowing rural counties to add on the sales tax funding alternative. That's where we stand today. Should the county council authorize another referendum to reestablish the property taxing power of the district? Should they instead put a one percent health care sales tax proposal on the ballot? Or should they look at yet other alternatives? The hospital district has already made their decision: go for the sales tax. It will generate up to a million dollars a year, with most of it being paid by visitors passing through town...and era to pay for county services is always a popular proposition. Not only will getting the money cover the current operating losses, but it will also begin generating savings for a new hospital that some board members believe will be needed within the next ten years. And the million bucks can go to other things as well: helping to pay off construction costs of a medical clinic and office for doctors, funding for search and rescue and the ambulance service, low-coresidents, and a host of other health care and disease prevention programs for BY FOR BE PEOPLE SPENDING A FEW PAID WILL services. It's all ours, AND MOST OF IT DAYS IN TOWN LOOKING AT THE NATIONAL PARKS. What could be better? When placed on the ballot, the referendum will have a great deal of appeal. And when voters are faced, as they will be if the measure makes it to the voting booth, with a choice of approving the tax or closing down file hospital and kissing goodbye to any meaningful medical services, a yes vote is just about assured. But even though it's a losing battle, I can't help but go over, just one more time, what's wrong with sales tax as compared to property tax. Sales tax is what is known as a regressive tax, in that the heaviest burden foils on those least able to afford it Someone with an income of say, $100,000 spends a lower percentage of their items than a family with an income of $15,000 or $25,000. It take home pay on means the single mother scraping by in Moab, feeding a couple of kids, ends up paying more of her income in taxes, money that could go to clothes and groceries and Christmas presents, while the wealthiest pay less. And while most of the million dollars in sales tax does come from visitors, a hefty portion of it, as much as three or four hundred thousand, comes from local residents. But property tax, on the other hand, hits the wealthiest the most, those with the biggest houses and the biggest cars and the biggest business enterprises. There are some exceptions, notably retirees living on fixed incomes who can't afford runaway property taxes. But most of their tax woes come not from a 1 1000th on the dollar hospital tax on their property, but from the huge increases in property valuations that are now hitting county residents, fueled by the popularity of the area and government efforts statewide, regionally, and locally to increase that value, because, after all, a more expensive community is a healthier, happier community. But even with that, property tax is primarily paid by companies and individuals who do not live in Moab, and by giving up the hospital property tax, we're allowing them off the hook. Let's take one of the new motels in town, owned by a consortium of investors from the Wasatch Front, or from out of state, worth, according to the tax rolls, about $2 million. Those people will save $2,000. Columbia Oil? They'll walk away with an extra $6,000 that could have gone to the hospital. The new pipelines? $10,000 minimum. The railroad? The other oil and gas firms that aren't headquartered anywhere near town? They all get a huge tax break. In fact, living, breathing, full-tiresidents of Grand County pay, maybe, a third of the local So if tax. the a sales tax for the property tax, it ends up being substitutes property county somewhere around a 300 percent increase in local taxes for the hospital. For a family that spends about $200 dollars a week in Moab on taxable goods, the total sales tax they will pay for the hospital will equal what they would pay for a home valued around $115,000. If you own a home worth more than that, then you gain with the sales tax plan. If you own a home worth less than that, then you pay more. But even with that, for most of us, the difference between the two is just a few cents a day, less than a cup of coffee, far less if you spend your mornings sucking down espressos or cappudnos. And for a couple of pennies, if it means that many more services for more people, it's a hard proposition to turn down. So I'll vote for it But it won't be an enthusiastic endorsement, because of gnawing questions and worries, concerns that maybe the lure of increasing funding for the hospital is leading us to ignore some of the longstanding health care problems we've had here. If in fact the hospital needs to be replaced, why did they spend half a million dollars just last the room? No the year improving emergency question existing emergency faHliHpa were outdated and inadequate, but if a new hospital was needed, why did so much of that money go to brick and mortar for an outdated structure? And when Dr. Jim Redd told hospital officials sales-taxab- le Dave 's Corner Market Cartoon Ad 4tl East & Mill Creek Dr. 259-69- 99 |