The amount of money the Park Hospital District turned over to UCHealth on Dec. 1 is just one of the outstanding financial questions facing PHD board members as they regroup to manage significantly reduced responsibilities following the transfer two months ago.
Other questions revolve around accounting issues.
“No financial handoff was done when UCHealth took over,” PHD Treasurer Brigitte Foust said when the board met last week. UCHealth’s acquisition of Estes Park Health was official on Dec. 1.
“We don’t know what our net position was on Nov. 30, our beginning fund balance, after all assets, all cash was transferred to UCHealth. We don’t know what our liabilities are, if there are any,” Foust told other board members. She also asked for balance sheets for the periods ending Nov. 30 and Dec. 30.
Board Vice Chair Steve Alper objected to Foust’s characterization of the financial status of the district.
“Brigitte, that’s a pretty damning statement,” Alper said.
“We don’t have what we need,” Foust said. She went on to explain that financial reporting must also include a December beginning fund balance. Foust said she asked the EPH Chief Financial Officer for financial reports in November before the transfer to UCHealth, but received no response.
“We still have district accounts,” Foust said. “We have a new PHD account. We don’t have any cash reconciliations. We don’t know anything about our finances. And that’s the truth. It’s not a damning statement.”
“We need to have this information to be responsible to the taxpayers. The land is still an asset,” Foust said. “The buildings are still assets, and they have value. I mean, we need to have a professional accounting system. It’s not just a new account. We record our expenses and our mill levy and our transfer. We need to know what we still owe, what our assets are.”
Foust asked that the PHD board receive an accounting of funds up to Nov. 30, what was paid from PHD funds from Dec. 1 to Dec. 30, and balance sheets for those periods, which she said should be built by a Certified Public Accountant.
“Closing documents will give us the entire picture of all the schedules, the exhibits, everything, what was included in the transaction, and it would help with the finances, but I think the financial closeout balance would be more important,” she said.
The board decided that more professional advice was needed, and an accountant with Eide Bailly, the Denver accounting firm used by EPH for years, would be an appropriate consultant.
Because of the depth of information needed, the board also decided to revisit financial questions, complete with written reports, when it meets on Feb. 17 in the Town Board meeting room at Town Hall.
Legal representation
Finance wasn’t the only subject covered last week.
Whether to renew the district’s affiliation with Hall Render as legal consultants was discussed at length again.
Alper recommended that the board talk with David Snow, an attorney with Hall Render, who worked with the board throughout the affiliation process.
“Let us talk to them, and make a determination, and ultimately we’ll vote on it,” Alper said. “I propose we do that as a first step to see if any concerns can be taken care of, and we go outside of them, and they are not taken care of.”
Board Member Tom Leigh’s request to review proposals from legal firms whose clients are only special districts prevailed.
“It’s not clear to me why the board hasn’t been involved with this from the very beginning,” Leigh said in reference to a legal question dealing with a current issue before the board.
“Our ignorance about the legal situation of this board is complete. I mean, there hasn’t been anything shared with us as a board. We haven’t had any decision-making authority whatsoever,” Leigh said.
The board agreed to interview representatives from the proposed legal firms at its next special meeting on Feb. 3 at 8 a.m. Each firm will be given 30 minutes to answer questions in an open session.
One of the legal team’s first tasks will be to review the board’s bylaws to ensure they comply with both the affiliation agreement and state statutes.
The PHD board will meet in a special Teams meeting format next Tuesday, Feb. 3, and in an open public meeting in the Estes Park Town Board meeting room at Town Hall on Feb. 17 at 5:30 p.m.