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NGHS: Contract talks with insurer have ‘ceased’
BY JEFF GILL
jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
Contract talks have “ceased”
between Gainesville-based
Northeast Georgia Health System
and UnitedHealthcare, the health
system said Thursday, Jan. 25.
“This is not the outcome we
want for our patients, but Unit
ed's senior leaders will not return
our calls and refuse to talk with
NGHS' executive leadership,”
said Steve McNeilly, NGHS'
chief operating officer of popu
lation health and vice president
of managed care operations, in a
statement.
“We have no choice but to
focus our efforts now on clearly
communicating with the com
munities we serve and helping
patients who are impacted in the
limited ways we can.”
McNeilly told The Times in
an interview Friday, Jan. 26,
that NGHS “does stand ready to
resume negotiations with United
if they're willing to meaning
fully engage” with NGHS on the
issues.
UHC couldn't be reached for
comment.
However, in a Dec. 23 post on
its website, UHC says, “It remains
our top priority to reach an agree
ment with NGHS that restores
network access to the health sys
tem at costs that are affordable for
Georgians and employers.
“We have made meaningful
movement and compromises in
each of our proposals as part of
good-faith negotiation designed
to reach an agreement. All of our
proposals would ensure NGHS is
reimbursed at rates that are more
than fair and reasonable.”
The two sides had been try
ing to negotiate a contract that
expired April 30.
At that time, UHC said “NGHS
refused to move off its demands
for a more than 20% price hike
over the next three years, includ
ing a double-digit rate increase in
the first year that would make its
hospitals the most expensive in
Georgia.”
And NGHS said it “is actu
ally only asking for a single-digit
increase to bring UnitedHealth
care in line with other commer
cial insurance companies” and a
proposal UHC sent on March 31
was “unreasonable. They know
we cannot accept it.”
NGHS says on its website
SeeNGHSI3A
Money on the bus
Photos by Scott Rogers The Times
Hall County bus driver Teresa Young was paid a yearly salary of nearly $150,000 in 2023. School officials have
said they were unaware one of their drivers was paid that much. They have found no evidence of any wrongdoing.
In this file photo, Young prepares for the school year Thursday, Aug, 4, 2022, by filling up at the bus shop on
Atlanta Highway.
How one Hall County bus driver made $150k last year
Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources at Hall
County School District Brad Brown.
BY BEN ANDERSON
banderson@gainesvilletimes.com
A bus driver making
$150,000 in a year?
Yup, you read that right.
Well, $ 149,747.46 to be exact.
Last year, longtime Hall
County bus driver Teresa
Young earned six times the
average bus driver salary of
about $23,000.
For comparison, the aver
age principal earns $118,386
a year.
And Young wasn't the only
driver raking it in.
Below are the salaries of
the next nine highest paid bus
drivers in Hall for the 2023
fiscal year, according to the
Open Georgia website.
• $97,072.93
•$93,384.16
•$90,191.25
• $90,003.01
• $85,833.78
• $85,465.60
•$72,135.69
•$70,747.81
•$64,601.13
If this news comes as a
shock, you're not alone.
Hall County School Dis
trict's top officials — every
one from the director of
transportation, to the head of
human resources, to the super
intendent — said they were
unaware that one of their driv
ers was being so handsomely
compensated.
“I knew that she made a
good living — I knew that
she made more than most
drivers — but I did not know
that she made anywhere near
that much,” said Clay Hobbs,
the district's transportation
director.
“I first became aware Sun
day morning when I got an
email from a community
member,” Superintendent
Will Schofield recalled. “And
that's when I — I don't usu
ally bother people on Sun
day — but I immediately
asked Clay (Hobbs) and Brad
(Brown, assistant superinten
dent for human resources), ‘Is
this accurate?' And they said,
‘We'll have to get back to you
tomorrow.'”
Brown looked into it and
was shocked to discover that
it was true.
“It's like, ‘Oh, my good
ness alive,' and the first thing
I wanted to make sure (of)
is that everything is above
board,” Brown said.
Brown, Hobbs and other
school officials maintained
that everything was, in fact,
above board, and that there
was no evidence that Young or
the other drivers falsified any
payroll documents.
“She hadn't done anything
wrong,” Hobbs said ofYoung.
“She did what was asked of
her.”
But how in the world
can a bus driver earn
that much money?
“She was actually doing the
work of about three drivers.
She has a very early start and
she finishes very late in the
day typically,” he said. “She's
a very essential cog in the
wheel that gets us where we
need to go.”
See Bus 14A
Man convicted
of murdering
his girlfriend
with dumbbell
BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
A Gainesville man pleaded guilty to killing his
girlfriend last year with a 10-pound dumbbell,
according to court documents.
Ivan Reyes-Jimenez, 51, pleaded guilty Thurs
day, Jan. 25, to malice murder and other charges
in the Jan. 17, 2023 death of Ana Sofia Martinez
Campos, 33, of Gainesville. He was sentenced
by Superior Court Judge Bonnie Oliver to life in
prison with the possibility of parole.
Hall County Sheriff's Office deputies responded
Jan. 17,2023 to a 911 call in the 300 block of Cres
cent Drive.
Reyes-Jimenez was accused of hitting Campos
in the head repeatedly with a 10-pound dumbbell.
Hall County Sheriff's Office Investigator Rich
ard Sinyard previously detailed statements by
Reyes-Jimenez after being read his Miranda rights.
“When we got to the end of it, Mr. Jimenez said,
‘I need an attorney because I'm guilty,'” Sinyard
testified at a Feb. 10 Magistrate Court hearing.
Sinyard also testified that Reyes-Jimenez was
lifting weights while Campos was studying her
Bible on the bed. The two began arguing when she
called him a “son of a b—,” leading him to become
violent, according to Sinyard's earlier testimony.
Reyes-Jimenez was indicted on charges of mal
ice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.
Northeastern Judicial Circuit District Attorney
Lee Darragh said Reyes-Jimenez will not be eli
gible for parole until he's 81.
“He cooperated with the police and has no prior
record,” Darragh said in a statement. “In the light
of those factors, the disposition reached was right
for the case.”
The Times has reached out to Reyes-Jimenez's
attorney, Larry Duttweiler.
Scott Rogers The Times
Ivan Reyes-Jimenez enters Hall County
Magistrate Court Friday, Feb. 10.
Man sentenced in arson case involving his own home
BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
A Talmo man was sentenced to proba
tion after pleading guilty to burning down
the mobile home he was living in last year,
according to court documents.
Michael Timothy Sites, 34, pleaded
guilty Jan. 16 to first-degree arson. Judge
Brian Heck sentenced him to five years on
probation.
Hall County firefighters responded
around 5:30 a.m. Feb. 25
to the 3700 block of Pratt
Reece Road, where a fire
destroyed a mobile home.
Sites did not own the home
but lived in it, according
to information from court
documents and the Hall
County Sheriff's Office.
The Sheriff's Office did
not have information on a motive.
“Investigators believe he lit a fire in a burn
barrel and it spread to the gasoline he poured
on the home,” the Sheriff's Office said at the
time of Sites' arrest.
Defense attorney Kyle Denslow declined
to comment.
The minimum sentence on first-degree
arson is one year, while the maximum is 20
years.
Sites will be subject to random drug
screens at the direction of probation.
He was sentenced under the First Offender
Act, meaning Sites will have the case dis
charged from his record without being found
guilty if he fulfills the terms of his sentence.
Sites also pleaded guilty to felony fleeing
and eluding from an incident in October. He
was sentenced to 24 months with the first
half in confinement and the remainder on
probation, which will run concurrently with
the arson sentence.
Sites was given credit for his time served
since Oct. 15, and the Hall County Jail listed
his expected release date as April 15.
Je
Sites
