Bond, revenue, weapons discussed

NHHS hospital district board told of record revenue, still in deficit

NEWPORT – Hospital district board members finetuned the $51 million hospital bond they intend to put before voters in August at their regular meeting Thursday, April 23. The ballot language is due at the county auditor’s office May 1.

The board of directors for Public Hospital District No. 1 of Pend Oreille County had to repass the resolution to seek $51 million from voters to build a new hospital. The first resolution and its title were too long to appear on the ballot. The board also needed to add language to indicate the total amount of the project, not just the $51 million the district is asking from voters.

“That was $55 million versus the ($51 million),” hospital district CEO Kim Manus told the board.

She said some of the other money would come from the district as well as elsewhere.

“The other thing was we needed to develop an explanatory statement,” Manus said. She said an attorney, Brad Berg, helped with that. The statement has to be in plain language, a certain amount of words.

According to state law, the district, as the entity putting the bond before voters, needed to have pro and con statements for the voters’ guide written by two three-person committees. The district set a special meeting Tuesday, April 28 to do that.

The committees were limited to three members each and the members had to live in the district. They had to be selected by the board, she said. If no choice is made, the county auditor could advertise for members of the committee. Hospital district board members and employees were eligible to serve on the committees, Manus said, as long as they did it on their own time, couldn’t use district equipment and used their own emails.

District CFO Justin Peters told commissioners there were record gross revenues for the district in March.

He said the district is still losing money, although March’s revenue certainly helps.

“That would give us a bottom line of $225,000 for March and puts us at a negative $1.2 million year to date,” Peter said.

He said the reason for the deficit was salaries wages and benefits.

“We’re $1.3 million above where we were the previous year,” he said. “So that’s a huge impact and we’re looking for ways to kind of shrink that buildup.”

He said dementia care services is close to being open.

“We’re expected to improve occupancy rates which will help with that deficit,” Peters said. Later in the meeting it was reported there were “four or five” people on the waiting list.

Cassie Wise, Revenue Cycle Director for the district, said the gross revenue of $8.47 million beat the October 2025 record of $7.38 million.

“But I think the thing that was most incredible was that it was $1.3 million more than we saw in February,” Wise said. She said there may be another revenue record next month.

Tina Batsch reported on clinical services. She said March was another record breaking month for services. The Emergency Department, Express Care and the hospital clinic all saw increased numbers.

The hospital clinic had 3,091 visits in March. The lab had more than 9,000 billable tests, almost 10,000, she said. That was the third month in a row the lab exceeded 9,000 billable tests.

Rehabilitation services also had an all-time record high, she said.

Their total visits between physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, went to 1,411 visits.

Imaging also had a record, partially because of the echocardiograms, with 1,902 different exams in March. Of those 57 were echocardiogram exams. Echocardiogram imaging was added recently. (See related story on 3A).

Adam Wiltse, Director of People and Workforce Development gave an administrative report, standing in for Chief Administrative Officer Joseph Clouse.

Wiltse said that the hospital district had 373 1/2 full time equivalent employees, with 22 open positions. The district had budgeted for 383 FTEs per year, he said.

Wiltse said the district was finalizing negotiations with nurses.

“Hopefully by the next board meeting we’ll have a tentative agreement,” he said.

Manus said it would likely require a special board meeting to finalize the contract.

Wiltse said a consultant was hired to conduct listening sessions with employees on district work challenges.

“We’ve formed a list of 60 plus things that need to get addressed,” he said. Wiltse said that the district met all the requirements for the International Association of Hospital Security and Safety certification.

Hospital commissioner Sue Johnson, who works as a nurse at another hospital, asked about security. She said that when people come into the hospital where she works that they are asked by security if they have a weapon. If a person does, they are given the option of taking it to their car and or checking it in with the hospital.

“We don’t do anything like that here,” Johnson said. She said a woman drew a knife on a doctor at the hospital where she works. “I was in the room, but I was by the door and I got out.”

After that, the hospital started asking about weapons, she said.

“I think that’s something that we should consider,” Johnson said. Wiltse said there was a protocol in place for when the hospital did find that someone had a weapon.

Manus said there was a meeting later that day to discuss security. She said there was a person with mental health issues “quite a few years ago” who came into the emergency room at the Newport hospital with a knife. She said the Sheriff’s Office came quickly to deal with it.