While financial statements for December 2025 and January 2026 have not been presented, a memo from Park Hospital District Treasurer Brigitte Foust outlining deposits and checks written since Dec. 1 was included in the work session packet for the District’s Feb. 17 meeting.
However, an explanation for each check—including one for $100,960.00 and another for $99,119.04—was not provided to the board.
One of the checks is for the exact amount paid to Pat Samples, the former Estes Park Health director of nursing, in a severance agreement, according to documents provided by EPH to the Estes Valley Voice via the Colorado Open Records Act.
Foust highlighted those concerns during the meeting and in her memo, in which she wrote, “A formal financial handoff and December 1 opening balance sheet have not yet been received. As a result, certain items require clarification to ensure the Board has a complete understanding of the District’s financial position.”
Foust has raised questions about income and expenses since the acquisition and requested clarification regarding the two checks totaling more than $200,000.
As she also did at a work session two weeks ago, Foust’s memo requested clarification about the District’s finances since the transition from Estes Park Health to UCHealth.
“As a Title 32 special district, the Park Hospital District is required to maintain accurate financial records, oversee District funds, and ensure transparency and accountability to taxpayers. To meet these statutory responsibilities and to establish the district’s financial infrastructure for operations beginning December 1, several foundational items require clarification,” wrote Foust.
While most of the payments made since Dec. 1 are relatively small, the two six-figure checks raised serious concerns for Foust.
“We had outstanding liabilities in terms of in terms of (sic) a severance payment, and in terms of Igor’s payment,” said Steve Alper, the District’s vice chair, during Tuesday’s work session. “That was reimbursement for those expenses, so those liabilities.”
Liabilities arising from events that occurred before closing, such as employment claims, remain the responsibility of Park Hospital District. Alper’s reference during the meeting was to Igor Huzicka, hired by Estes Park Health as an internal medicine physician. Huzicka’s start date of employment was Sep. 1. He was placed on administrative leave shortly after being hired, and his employment was terminated on Nov. 30, the day before the Dec. 1 acquisition of Estes Park Health by UCHealth.
According to documents provided by Estes Park Health to the Estes Valley Voice, during the 13 weeks Huzicka was employed by Estes Park Health, he received a $60,000 bonus and $151,041.84 in wages for 360 hours of work. He also received $23,076.80 in “retro pay” and $59.14 for “group term life coverage.”
Another amount paid to Huzicka, however, was redacted from information the Park Hospital District provided to the Estes Valley Voice in response to a Colorado Open Records Act request made on Jan. 8, 2026.
While CORA exempts personnel files, including personal data and performance reports, from public disclosure, wages, bonuses, and severance payments made to state employees – including employees of a political subdivision such as the Park Hospital District – are public records open to public inspection.
Colorado law requires that if information is denied or redacted in response to a CORA request, a statutory reason for the denial must be provided. The Voice received no reason for the denial or redaction. On Jan. 19, the Voice again requested that the Park Hospital District provide the amount of severance paid to Huzicka.
On Feb. 13, the Voice again sent a CORA request to the PHD requesting “any and all documents and records, whether electronic or printed, detailing the legal expenses billed to and paid by Estes Park Health-Park Hospital District related to addressing, negotiating, and finalizing the issues related to the termination and severance offer prepared for and or presented to Igor Huzicka,” and also the exact date Huzicka was placed on administrative leave.
The Colorado Open Records Act, C.R.S. § 24-72-201 to 206, requires that public records be provided within three business days of a request. An extension of up to seven additional working days is allowed for extenuating circumstances.
On Thursday, Feb. 19, the Voice received a notice from Cory Workman, the chair of the Park Hospital District, stating that the PHD was “invoking the extension permitted under the § 24-72-203(3)(b) of the Colorado Revised Statutes” and would respond to the CORA request by March 2 for information about the separation agreement and any severance paid to Huzicka.
On Oct. 7, 2024, the Voice submitted a CORA request for information about the employment contract and severance paid to Pat Samples, who had served as EPH’s chief nursing officer since 2020. In a press release received by the Estes Valley Voice on May 20, Estes Park Health announced that Samples would be retiring suddenly.
In an Oct. 10 email, the Park Hospital District denied the Voice’s request, stating “The District maintains no records that are responsive to this request.”
Following a second CORA request in November, the Park Hospital District provided the Voice with a copy of the settlement and release agreement signed on May 28, 2025 by Samples and Vern Carda, EPH’s CEO, showing that Samples agreed to 12 months of salary, in addition to accrued PTO, less applicable federal, state, or local tax withholding, FICA, and any other applicable payroll deductions as the severance package.
A spreadsheet provided in December to the Estes Valley Voice by the Park Hospital District includes information on salaries paid by Estes Park Health to several top-level employees in 2023, 2024, and 2025, during a period of time the District informed the community that the hospital was $11 million in debt and needed to pursue an affiliation or acquisition, or face imminent closure.
In 2024, Samples was compensated $242,346.83, including wages of $209,996.80 and a bonus of $31,499.52. In 2025, she was paid $197,881.60 in wages, $21,807.36 in PTO, and a severance payment of $100,960.00. In addition to a service award and group term life, she received $321,229.96 in total compensation in 2025.
In 2023, Vern Carda, the Estes Park Hospital’s CEO, was paid $404,539.39 including a bonus of $84,152.64; in 2024, $420,220.74, including a bonus of $67,999.00; and from January to mid-November in 2025, two weeks before the acquisition of EPH by UCHealth, he was paid $348,895.76.
Closing binder not yet provided to board members
During Tuesday’s meeting, Foust again stated that the Park Hospital District Directors had not yet received a closing binder detailing expenses leading up to and incurred during the acquisition.
While the board recently received a balance sheet for Nov. 30 along with 11 schedules, Foust expressed concern that without the closing binder and other documentation related to the financial handoff of Estes Park Health to UCHealth 81 days ago, including the valuation of the property and all the hospital’s assets, the Park Hospital District would have problems as it prepares for a legally mandated annual independent audit due by July 31.
From Dec. 1, through Feb. 3, the district received $318,244.98, including $249,990.00 from a source that the treasurer said “needs clarification,” $68,232.12 from Larimer County, which collects the Park Hospital District’s mill levy, and $22.86 in bank interest.
As of Feb. 3, the District’s bank balance was $108,121.85. Recent expenses included $2,400 for office space rental, $443 in two small expenditures whose purposes were not identified, $284.75 for an unidentified vendor payment, and $1,848.00 for a credit card purchase of Microsoft Office.
The Park Hospital District mill levy is 7.505 mills, a rate that assesses approximately $75.05 in taxes per $10,000 of assessed property value. The levy currently generates roughly $4.4 million in annual tax revenue. According to the agreement with UCHealth, the revenue, minus $200,000 per year, will be paid to UCHealth for the next 50 years. At current property valuations, the Park Hospital District will pay UCHealth approximately $210 million between now and 2075.
Under the acquisition agreement, the publicly elected directors of Park Hospital District no longer exercise policy or operational oversight over the hospital. The District is effectively now a pass-through tax collection entity.
“We need a spending policy. That’s very important. And any amount over a certain amount needs to be approved by the board,” said Foust as she expressed her concerns about expenses and checks written without her knowledge as the District’s treasurer.
Areas in question, according to Foust’s memo, include the $200,000 escrow agreement with UCHealth, $200,079.40 in employee severance payments, the Ascensus Retirement Plan wind-down, estimated at $15,000 per quarter, $262,500 in estimated run-out health insurance claims, and a consolidated list of retained district liabilities.
“We need to set up our accounting system,” Foust told the board. “A banking transaction is no substitute for an accounting system.”
The PHD’s next meeting will be Feb. 25 at 5:30 p.m. in the Town Hall board room. The public is invited to attend in person or virtually by registering through the PHD website.
The agenda is anticipated to include approval of the study session minutes, a review of financial reports, consideration of hiring special district legal counsel, and approval of a website services contract.