In yet another contentious board meeting marked by disagreements over the agenda, oversight of legal expenses that exceeded the budget, and whether law firm invoices should undergo an independent review, the Park Hospital District Board on Thursday approved $180,711.45 in outstanding legal bills.
Director Tom Leigh, a retired emergency physician, questioned whether the board had authorized all the work performed by Hall Render, the District’s legal counsel, and called for an independent audit before paying the bills.
Despite concerns raised by Leigh and Treasurer Bridgette Foust, the board voted 4-1 to approve the payments.
The agenda listed 15 items, but the board completed only six during its 90-minute meeting before adjourning to accommodate Board Chair Cory Workman and Vice Chair Steve Alper, both of whom said they had a hard stop at 9:30 a.m.
The board packet included several resolutions and policy amendments submitted by Leigh that focused on restoring the District’s statutory budgetary authority, improving transparency and fiscal oversight, addressing billing concerns with Hall Render, and strengthening records handling.
One proposal would have amended the Integration and Affiliation Agreement with UCHealth to return authority to the District to “adopt, appropriate, and amend its annual budget without limitation, approval, constraint, or veto by UCHealth, in accordance with C.R.S. 29-1-103, C.R.S. 29-1-105, and C.R.S. 29-1-110.”
Another resolution, 2026-07, sought to require full invoice disclosure, trustee review, and privilege-log documentation for redactions to enforce strict limits on spending without full board scrutiny and to protect the District and individual trustees from violations of Colorado’s appropriation rules.
Drafts of other resolutions called for terminating Hall Render and requiring production of digital invoices to all directors.
One resolution included the following findings: Hall Render billed at rates (~$500/hour) significantly above typical rural Colorado special-district levels; invoices exceeded the appropriated legal budget by more than $200,000 without prior Board approval (contrary to C.R.S. 29-1-110); invoices were withheld under broad privilege claims, preventing trustee review; Hall Render drafted an MOU that attempted to retroactively authorize expenditures and modify flow-of-funds obligations (creating a conflict of interest); the MOU was approved without invoice review amid notice irregularities; and continued engagement creates ongoing financial, fiduciary, and statutory risk.
While the board declined to act on Leigh’s proposed resolutions, it approved $84,335.89 for legal work performed in December 2025 and $96,375.56 for work in 2026, excluding nearly $22,000 in retirement-plan expenses that directors said should be separated and potentially billed to UCHealth subsidiary Acentra.
Leigh sought to table two agenda items, including a proposal setting the board’s priorities for the remainder of 2026. He said the item had been added about 34 hours before the meeting, after he had submitted discussion items that were not included.
“It’s placed on the agenda specifically to avoid discussion of some of the things that I said I wanted to discuss two weeks ago,” Leigh said.
His motion failed 3-2, and the board approved the agenda by the same margin.
Alper said the priorities proposal was intended to keep the board focused on remaining 2026 responsibilities, including the District’s budget, retirement plans, records, and selection of legal counsel. He characterized Leigh’s concerns as “opinion” and noted the board had already spent considerable time on many of the issues.
“The board has a decision to make,” Alper said. “We have heard your objections a number of times, and I would like to bring this to a vote.”
Questions about legal spending
The legal invoices prompted debate over how Hall Render’s work was authorized and whether the charges benefited the District.
Leigh raised several specific concerns: 38% of the invoices are incomplete and lack billing rates; some invoices document discussions between individual directors and attorneys about litigation strategy without full board knowledge or authorization; and more than $23,000 related to the creation of a board conduct policy that he said was intended to constrain him and Foust from raising questions about board operations.
“There are a number of irregularities in these bills,” Leigh said. “I think, to protect the board, to protect directors’ potential liability, we need to have an independent third-party audit of these legal fees before we approve them.”
He estimated an independent review could cost $10,000 to $15,000 but believed it could identify greater savings. “I am not accusing anybody of criminality,” Leigh said. “I’m trying to look out for the best interest of this board and this special District.”
Foust questioned how several matters listed on the invoices benefited the District and why substantial legal work continued after UCHealth assumed management of the hospital on Dec. 1, 2025.
She pointed out that the District had budgeted $50,000 for legal expenses but exceeded that amount because it lacked a spending policy, cost controls, and regular oversight.
“The district, in my mind, became the cash cow for legal fees,” said Foust.
Foust nevertheless said Hall Render had performed the work and should be paid once the invoices were corrected to separate the retirement-plan charges.
Alper and Workman both acknowledged the board could have managed legal spending more effectively and had not established a new review process after the transition to UCHealth.
They argued that delaying payment or commissioning a review risked additional cost without guaranteed savings. Alper noted that UCHealth had provided funds to cover the overages and that any unused money would otherwise be remitted to UCHealth under the parties’ agreement.
“This could have been managed a lot better,” Alper said.
Zeschin said Hall Render should be paid for the services it reported performing and objected to any suggestion of intentional overbilling.
Leigh reiterated that his request concerned financial controls and compliance, not fraud.
Workman said an independent review would create another expense and might merely confirm that most of the bills were payable.
“In my mind, spending more money is more risky than acknowledging that these were here,” Workman said.
The board approved the invoices but directed Foust and Workman to obtain corrected bills showing the retirement-plan expenses separately.
Foust said she would not issue payment until the District received accurate invoices matching the amounts approved.
The Park Hospital District collects about $4.6 million in annual property taxes and transfers all but $200,000 of it to UCHealth under the Dec. 1 acquisition agreement for administrative costs and biennial board elections. Because legal bills exceeded the District’s budget by more than $200,000, UCHealth is returning a portion of those funds to cover the overages.
Both Alper and Zeschin dismissed the framing that taxpayers were bearing the cost.
“I just want to get into this tax dollar thing. UCHealth is providing us with, I think, an additional $200,000,” Alper said.
“Tom, they’re not paying for them. It is tax dollars ultimately, yeah, you know what I mean,” Zeschin said. “They’re just letting us keep more of the tax dollar than we would have originally.”
Board narrows 2026 priorities
The board also debated a proposal to establish a limited work plan for the rest of 2026. The original version would have declared that further legal review or changes to the UCHealth agreement were not priorities.
Leigh said the language seemed designed to prevent him and Foust from raising issues and criticized the board for setting priorities before adopting a mission, vision, or values statement for the newly restructured District.
“This is less an idea that we need to set our priorities,” Leigh said. “This is more of an effort, I think, to silence dissent, silence discussion.”
Foust agreed the language could be interpreted as an attempt to limit discussion and asked that it be removed.
The board reached a compromise and unanimously approved only the first portion of the proposal.
Adopted priorities include completing the 2026 budget, developing the 2027 budget, closing the District’s retirement plans, evaluating legal counsel, and fulfilling essential administrative and statutory responsibilities.
The deleted language would have discouraged additional legal review or proposed changes to the UCHealth agreements.
Alper said the priorities would not prevent a director from proposing other business, but the board could reject those requests by majority vote.
The meeting closed with discussion of establishing regular meeting dates and times in advance and setting deadlines for distributing agendas and board packets. Directors agreed on a goal of distributing materials five days before a meeting, with a minimum of 72 hours except for urgent matters.
The board also discussed preparations for the 2027 budget, including statutory deadlines. Foust said she would resend the budget timeline and present a draft in October.
The board will continue its initial budget discussion at its next regular meeting, set for Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 5:30 p.m. at Estes Park Town Hall.