{"id":497,"date":"2012-01-06T01:26:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T01:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=497"},"modified":"2012-01-06T01:26:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T01:26:20","slug":"healthcare-corp-faces-15m-shortfall-on-its-1st-year-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/healthcare-corp-faces-15m-shortfall-on-its-1st-year-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthcare corp. faces $15M shortfall on its 1st year alone"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Moneth Deposa
\nReporter<\/div>\n

Barely three months after its takeover of the Department of Public Health, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is already expected to incur an estimated shortfall of $15 million by the end of fiscal year 2012.<\/p>\n

This was one of the reasons why his administration awarded the healthcare corporation a government lot in an effort to boost its revenue generating efforts and sustain its operations, said Gov. Benigno R. Fitial.<\/p>\n

The corporation was appropriated only $5 million seed money this fiscal year. Corporation chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta described this amount as \u201cunrealistic\u201d compared to what DPH used to receive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shortfall started even before the budget law was passed. The $5 million given to the corporation is a far cry from DPH’s operating budget of nearly $28 million. The corporation, since Day 1, is already in deficit,\u201d Babauta said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Last week the corporation submitted to the Legislature a $38.5-million supplemental budget request for fiscal year 2012. This submission was boosted by the corporation’s desire to tap the $18 million \u201cidentified resources from the hospital\u201d that have was not appropriated by the Legislature in the budget law.<\/p>\n

Babauta conceded yesterday that the $38.5 million supplemental budget may not pass the Legislature at this time because of limited government resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the Legislature is not going to pass it [$38.5 million]. But that budget is reflective of what it is now. We are going to go through [with the Legislature] on this budget proposal item-by-item to see where we can make the cuts across the board to make it realistic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Records obtained by Saipan Tribune show that the corporation’s $38.5 million supplemental submission include the following projected costs:<\/p>\n

-$24.6 million personnel cost for 599 positions;<\/p>\n

-$8.4 million for hospital supplies;<\/p>\n

-$775,798 for professional services;<\/p>\n

-$345,456 for office expenses;<\/p>\n

-$33,600 for rentals;<\/p>\n

-$3.8 million for repairs and maintenance and others; and<\/p>\n

-$308,000 for travel.<\/p>\n

Babauta said the healthcare corporation could lower the $38.5-million budget proposal to $25 million. \u201cThe realistic budget is somewhere around $25 million to $26 million and we’re going to work on this figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

There’s also a big possibility, he said, that their current workforce of over 600 will be cut after a review of all units and sections at the hospital.<\/p>\n

He said the corporation may eliminate or terminate a specific service at CHC to avert incurring huge deficits within the fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hate to do that, but financially, we cannot carry that burden anymore. We cannot continue to operate in deficit,\u201d added Babauta.<\/p>\n

MPLT help<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fitial expressed support for the idea of providing a $10 million credit line for the healthcare corporation from the Marianas Public Land Trust. A bill on this effort has been recently filed at the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

The law that established the corporation allows the organization to borrow money, guaranteed by the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re also asking a letter of credit from MPLT so it will provide short-term requirement to the corporation,\u201d said Fitial, adding that the awarding of the Navy Hill property and the MPLT credit line will help the organization address its serious financial concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Moneth Deposa Reporter Barely three months after its takeover of the Department of Public…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}