© 1997 Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale, California, USA (805) 273-2700
The 352-bed hospital started 1997 with a budget surplus of $2 million and cash reserves of $53 million.
With those financial resources, the public health-care district that operates the hospital embarked on $16.3 million worth of capital projects. The expansion includes its emergency room, construction of a state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging center, building a 99-bed skilled nursing facility, erecting a new office building for administrators, and adding an ambulatory surgery center and a pediatric intensive-care unit.
In February, the hospital's board of directors argued over employee flex-time policies, under which workers were being sent home when the number of patients in the hospital dropped.
The disagreement was resolved in March, when the directors decided to grant all employees eight more hours of paid time off. They said employees could trade the extra time for cash when they were sent home.
Also in March, the board considered working with Valley Healthcare Inc. to establish an outof-state respiratory management company.
Because of questions about the financial and legal status of the corporation - formerly a controversial and tax-exempt affiliate called Health Ventures that was strangled financially in 1993 by intra-hospital lawsuits and power struggles - the discussion was dropped from the board's agenda.
The same month, the hospital's 1,600 employees were granted raises of between 3.5% and 4% because of the hospital's financial condition. Chief Executive Officer Robert Harenski received a 6% pay hike plus an incentive bonus of 14%.
The CEO's extra pay spurred board member Deborah Rice to ask how much Harenski was earning. The answer did not come for three months, and then in a closed-session report prepared only for the board.
That report showed Harenski was on track to earn $547,746 by Dec. 31, but the figure was later revised to $536,000. The report led to a lengthy review intended to set the proper salary for the CEO's position.
The possibility of employees holding an election for unionization arose in April but slipped from the spotlight in subsequent months.
In May, the hospital celebrated the opening of an $802,000, 4,600square-foot magnetic resonance imaging center across from the emergency room. The new center replaced a temporary unit and allowed for the examination of about 15 patients a day instead of 10 or 12.
A fiscal-year audit showed the hospital district holding gross assets of $152.9 million and liabilities of $72.7 million, leaving net assets of $80.2 million. Because of higher patient numbers, the district also ended the 1996-97 fiscal year with surplus revenues of $6.7 million.
"We had a very good year," Chief Financial Officer Bob Anderson reported.
In July, the hospital made available millions of dollars worth of Apple and Apple-compatible equipment for local schools, libraries and other public facilities as part of an ongoing effort to update its computer system.
In September, the hospital board voted to spend $300,000 leasing building space at 1529 East Palmdale Blvd. for five years. The board then subleased that space to Los Angeles County for $1 a year, facilitating the operation of a medical clinic for uninsured patients in the south Antelope Valley.
In October, the board voted to phase out the hospital's Home Health/Hospice Program, citing a lack of patients and an abundance of local competitors offering care services to homebound patients.
That same month, Antelope Valley Hospital put its mental health unit under the direction of the Horizons Healthcare company. Administrators had been searching for an outside firm to improve and expand services in the unit.
The management transfer was intended to find ways to keep those who have been treated and released from the mental health unit from slipping back to a condition where they needed retreatment and to find ways to appeal to mental health patients currently using non-Valley services.
In November, the board of directors asked one of its members, Steve Fox, to repay $2,152 stemming from personal purchases charged to his hospital-issued credit card, including plane tickets bought for family members.
An internal audit showed that Fox and about 10 other people with hospital-issued cards failed to turn in travel vouchers and receipts for some purchases, which were supposed to be hospital-related.
As a result, the board voted to have administrators cancel many cards and establish new policies for credit-card use.
In December, the board approved pursuing a joint venture with a group of physicians organized as the Advanced Ambulatory Medical Center. The goal is to establish and operate an outpatient surgical center next to Antelope Valley Hospital, 1600 West Avenue J, Lancaster.
Much of the board's attention during the year was whether it should or should not offer its CEO a new contract.
After months of disagreement, three of five board members voted in December to offer Harenski four more years of employment at reduced pay. The contract hinged on Harenski agreeing to pay back $100,513 in disputed supplemental retirement benefits the board gave him in November 1996.
Harenski agreed to the terms under protest, noting that if the board failed to begin negotiating another contract after 2 1/2 years, he would demand his 18 months' severance pay and look for a new job.
Over the course of 1997, the hospital increased the number of full- and part-time employees from about 1,350 to more than 1,700, administrators reported. Many of those workers were said to be former employees who had been laid off and rehired at the same pay rate as when they had left.