Newspaper Page Text
THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
CENTER
From page 1A
Construction of the build
ing was on a nine-month
schedule, Rossman said.
But the project took about
two years, as the hospital
applied to the state for the
certificate of need in
January 2003. The state
said there was not a need
for additional rooms,
explained Mary Jane
Kinnas, community rela
tions director for Houston
Healthcare, so the new
operating rooms do not add
to, but replace operating
rooms in the hospital.
“It provides comfort for
patients and give us extra
space,” Rossman said.
Erwin said the new facili
ty is designed to be user
friendly for the patients
and staff.
“Our goal is for patients
to have such a good experi
ence they want to talk
about us, for the doctors to
have such a good experience
they want to tell everyone
about us,” she said.
BUDGET
From page 1A
critic’s desire to study and
debate its contents.
But opposed as
Republicans are to any new
taxes, they will face enor
mous pressure when they
attempt to juggle the state’s
needs against its financial
ability to meet them.
The good news for the new
Republican majority is that
state tax collections are on
an upswing after stagnating
or declining for more than
two years. The bad news is
that there are still many
unmet needs.
Prisons are bulging,
teachers have gotten only a
2 percent pay raise over two
years, health care costs are
spiraling out of control for
the state’s neediest and for
the government work force,
and financial pressure on
the state’s colleges led the
Board of Regents to consider
an unprecedented midyear
tuition increase of 10 per
cent.
“It’s not a bad year in
terms of revenue growth,”
said University of Georgia
economist Jeffrey
Humphreys. “The problem
At a glance
The budget picture for the next
fiscal year as seen by the Georgia
Budget and Policy Institute, a
nonprofit organization sponsored
by several foundations:
NEW MONEY: A projected 6.3
percent growth rate would yield
$950 million in new revenue for
the fiscal year beginning July 1,
m
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Erwin said the design has
to be very efficient for the
facility staffed by 28 people.
The layout of the building
has patients coming in one
door and leaving through
another to maintain patient
privacy and comfort.
In between there are con
sultation areas, pre-op, sur
gery, recovery and “a step
down unit where patients
are sitting up in recliners,
getting ready to go home,”
Erwin said.
The lobby is designed for
the community, she said,
with an adult and a chil
dren’s area. Glass blocks
making up the Houston
Healthcare logo on the wall
in the entranceway came
from the first clinic in
Warner Robins, Rossman
said, “Mrs. Bill Parker con
tacted us. She salvaged
them from the building on
North Davis (Drive) before
it was torn down by her
church which had bought
the property.”
The site of the Surgery
is on the expenditure side
and the demands for service.
Revenue is increasing at a
pretty good clip but the
demand for services is
increasing even faster.”
The problem dates from
the recession of 2001.
Economists say it lasted
only eight months, but that
wasn’t the experience in
Georgia. Over the past sev
eral years, the state has
been forced to enact steep
spending cuts - by some
estimates as much as $1.7
billion - and tap its reserve
funds to keep its budget bal
anced.
“We were hit harder by
the recession than the
nation was, so we have more
jobs to recover,” Humphreys
said. “We lost about 3.7 per
cent of our total jobs where
as the nation only lost 2 per
cent.”
The road back has been
hard, and for the budget
that lawmakers will begin
writing in January, Gov.
Sonny Perdue already has
warned there may be more
cuts.
He hasn’t made his recom
mendations yet. However, in
2005 and ending June 30, 2006.
NEW COSTS: Meeting payroll
commitments, complying with
funding formulas and filling other
known needs would require S9OO
million for five state agencies
alone: the university Board of
Regents, the Department of
Education, the Department of
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Open
house
The official grand
opening/ribbon cutting
for Houston Medical
Center’s new Surgery
Center will be at 10 a.m.
Saturday, Jan. 22.
Following the ribbon cut
ting and tours, the cen
ter will be open to the
community from 11 a.m.
until 2 p.m. for tours,
free screenings, Teddy
Bear Clinic, clowns, bal
loons, etc. All are invited
to will take advantage of
this opportunity to see
the “behind the scenes”
areas of the surgery
facility.
Center is a former parking
lot for another church,
Central Baptist, which is
now surrounded by the hos
pital.
preparation for his meetings
with state agencies about
their needs, he asked man
agers to propose budgets
based on three different pos
sibilities: a 3-percent spend
ing cut, a no-growth flat
budget and a 5-percent
spending increase.
The Board of Regents,
which runs Georgia’s 34
public colleges and universi
ties and has had its budget
cut by $382 million since
November 2001, floated a
plan last summer for a
whopping tuition increase to
offset additional cuts. Under
pressure from students and
Perdue, the board backed off
and decided it could raid its
health insurance reserves if
necessary.
State health care prob
lems are in a league of their
own.
Layoffs spawned by the
recession forced a surge in
demand for Medicaid, the
state-federal program of
health care for the poor, just
as medical costs began
climbing to a 15-year high.
The program’s shortfall is
such that even with the
most optimistic possibility of
Community Health, the
Department of Human Resources
and the Department of
Corrections.
REBUILDING RESERVES:
Wall Street bond analysts have
expressed concern that the state’s
reserves are low. The institute
suggests a need to allocate S3OO
Omar |pecial
LOCAL
-HOUSTON
I THE M
SURGERY ~ - 2H
CENTER - * flyE
HIM Ray Lightner
Jesse Burnett, a 21-year employee with Houston Medical Center “came over here to
help them move in’’ to the Ambulatory Surgery Center. Surgeries at the new facility
were scheduled for Monday and were booked all the way through the end of January.
a 5 percent increase in its
budget next year, the state
would need to cut Medicaid
and Peach Care, the state’s
health program for children,
by $172.6 million. In the
worst-case budget, the cut
would reach nearly $330
million.
To deal with the problem,
the board that manages the
program has proposed to
deny, reduce or eliminate
benefits to thousands of
women, children, the blind,
aged and disabled.
It’s also predicting a $440
million shortfall in the
health benefit program for
state employees, a problem
it proposes to fix through a
combination of higher
employee premiums and
restrictions on care.
Linda Lowe, one of the
state’s most outspoken con
sumer health advocates,
says the cuts are wrong and
shortsighted.
“We’ve already lost health
care coverage for a lot of
Georgians over the last sev
eral years, most recently
45,000 children who lost
Peach Care coverage under a
decision to lock children out
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the Uccunvp£v>hmenh
Representative Larry C. Walker Jr.
3ig attending, the 3iig Jndian Cxeeh Jundmitm
Saturday, January 8,2005
Miller-Murphy-Howard Building
Georgia National Fairgrounds & AgriCenter
Perry, Georgia
Dinner: 7:00 pm Lntettainment
Roast: 7:45 pm pwuided %:
Dance: 9:00 pm Stefiedwm
Dress: Casual • Cost: sls
Tickets may be purchased at the Chamber of Commerce in
Perry 478-987-1234 and Warner Robins 478-922-8585
for three months if their
parents’ premiums are
late,.” she said.
“It doesn’t matter who’s
in charge. The people in
charge have to face the fact
that these are important
public services and have to
be adequately funded or
everybody suffers.”
Teachers helped Perdue
defeat Gov. Roy Barnes two
years ago to become the
state’s first GOP chief exec
utive in 130 years. Under
the Perdue administration,
they’ve gotten only a single
pay raise of 2 percent and
are looking for more.
“We suffered through the
bad times but as times get
better we expect our situa
tion to improve as well,”
said Tim Callahan, a
spokesman for the 60,000-
member Professional
Association of Georgia
Educators. The group is
pushing for a 6 percent pay
raise at a price tag of about a
half-billion dollars.
The demand from teach
ers, health care advocates,
higher education officials
and many others quickly
adds up to a figure the state
million to S4OO million to
reserves.
PAY RAISE: A 3-percent pay
raise . for teachers and state
employees would cost an addition
al S3OO million to $350 million.
PROJECTED SHORTFALL:
The state would face a shortfall of
$550 million to S7OO million if the
TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2005 ♦
can’t reach without a tax
increase, and Republicans
have ruled that out.
“It’s definitely going to be
a challenge,” said Rep. Jerry
Keen, R-St. Simons Island,
who will serve as the major
ity leader in the new session.
But Republicans are up to it,
he said.
One thing Republicans
won’t do, Keen said, is to use
the budget as leverage to get
other bills passed, a
Democrat tactic that often
kept the spending bill up in
the air until the closing
gavel.
“We’re going to present a
budget early enough that it
will have time to be debated
and perfected so when it
comes down, there will be
time for members to under
stand what’s in it,” he said.
“You can’t do that when
you’re scrambling around in
the closing hours of the ses
sion. The budget’s too
important to treat that
way.”
Dick Pettys has covered
Georgia government and
politics since 1970
governor were to fund the items
identified by the institute.
On The Net:
Georgia Budget and Policy
Institute: www.gbpi.org
- By The Associated Press
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