By Cindi Andrews
Enquirer staff writer
The Drake Center might have to shut down if its tax levy fails next month, Joseph Steger, chairman of the hospital's board of trustees, said Tuesday.
"There's two options,'' he said. "One is close, because we don't have the money to operate. The other is to just take people who can pay."
Steger, retired president of the University of Cincinnati, said Drake might have to make cuts even if the $80 million levy for the hospital and several county drug treatment-related programs passes Nov. 2.
Meeting Tuesday with the Enquirer's editorial board, Drake leaders said they did not yet know what services would be cut for the 6,800 patients the hospital sees annually.
The long-term, acute-care facility had requested $99 million over the next five years, but it isn't likely to get more than $68 million of the proposed levy if it passes. Hamilton County commissioners will decide the division of money between Drake and the other county programs after the levy passes.
The tax issue faces organized opposition from the Drake Wastes Money Committee, which is led by Commissioner Phil Heimlich. The group has already begun mailing information to absentee voters urging them to reject the levy.
"This campaign is not about health care, it is about getting a bloated bureaucracy under control," Heimlich said.
Patients wouldn't suffer if the levy were rejected, Heimlich said, because the hospital has a $30 million reserve that could fund services while leaders figured out how to cut costs.
The Drake Wastes Money Committee says the hospital could cut its costs without compromising care. As examples, the anti-Drake mailer points to CEO Roberta Bradford's $370,000 salary and benefits; the $1.6 million Drake spends annually on marketing; and the average $110,000 a year Drake doctors receive beyond what their patients' insurance pays.
Bradford said the community should be proud of the unique care Drake provides; no other county in the state supports such a facility with a tax levy. Drake contends that it saves county taxpayers money because of its success in getting people off ventilators and home more often and more quickly than other facilities - a claim disputed by Drake Wastes Money.
Drake has reduced its reliance on taxpayers, Steger noted, with levy money making up 20 percent of the hospital's budget today compared to 40 percent in 1989.
That's when UC and the county struck a 50-year agreement to keep the hospital going after Donald Harvey, a nurse's aide at Drake, admitted to killing 25 patients.
The 1989 deal gave UC the authority to appoint two-thirds of Drake trustees. County commissioners appoint the other one-third.
Steger questioned Heimlich's motivation: "What he wants is to please the nursing homes. Go look at the donations from his campaign."
Heimlich raised $592,867 in his 2002 campaign. According to campaign finance reports, $2,600 came from Steven Boymel of Brookwood Retirement Community.
"I think it's interesting that those of us who've opposed more and more taxes for this institution have continually faced these kind of personal attacks," Heimlich said.
Chris Finney, chairman of the commissioners' Tax Levy Review Committee, was criticized in an e-mail by the president of Drake's advertising agency this spring.
Finney is now part of the Drake Wastes Money campaign, along with George Vincent, former chairman of the review committee.
Issue 43
Drake, a county-owned hospital in Hartwell, is the primary beneficiary of Issue 43, a 0.84-mill, five-year replacement levy on the Nov. 2 ballot. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $25 a year, compared to $24 under the levy that expires this year. The levy would raise $80 million over the next five years. Most of it would go to Drake but some - possibly $12 million - would go to county programs related to drug and alcohol treatment.
