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County holds millage rate at 2006 level
Story expanded from Tuesday
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The Liberty County Commission Monday chopped one mill off a four-mill tax request from the hospital authority and decided to place LRMC under the scrutiny of a blue-ribbon panel.
Commission Chairman John McIver said “Everything is on the table,” as the yet-to-be-named panel studies what plunged the hospital into losing money for nine out of the last 10 years and how to reverse that trend.
Last year, the hospital authority rolled back its millage request to 1.917 mills.
Not one commissioner voted in favor of the four-mill tax.
On the county’s own tax rate, the commissioners held the millage rate at 12.684 for the unincorporated area and the six municipalities that do not levy property taxes.
In Hinesville, county taxes were rolled back to 11.646 mills to begin the relief from double taxation for Hinesville residents.
Using a home valued at $100,000 last year as an example, county Finance Officer Kim McGlothlin proposed that the fair market value of the home would increase three percent, to $103,000. Depending on exemptions and other variables, the tax on this home would increase by $15 if it were outside Hinesville.
In Hinesville, the same home would receive a tax cut of $28 in county taxes. (Hinesville's separate city taxes would still have to be paid.)
Commissioner Donald Lovette, lab director at LRMC, abstained from votes involving the hospital.
A payment mix including 44 percent of patients in the self-pay category, meaning they have no insurance, was blamed for the hospital’s declining financial condition. Reimbursement rates are also being cut, so that the hospital loses money on the care it provides.
There was no mention of the cost of malpractice settlements, judgments in malpractice cases, the costs of litigating these and other matters or malpractice insurance. 
Dr. Seth Borquaye, chief of the LRMH medical staff and an obstetrician, delivered an impassioned for support for the hospital. He blamed socioeconomic conditions for the hospital’s financial plight and said, “We have no high-paying jobs here.”
He offered the commissioners the possibility of mothers and children dying on the side of the highway trying to make their way to Savannah if adequate ob/gyn services were not maintained at LRMC. “People will die,” he said, “They will lose their lives.”
Discussion of delivering babies brought attention to the relationship between Liberty Regional and Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart. LRMC handles overflow pregnancies from Winn, as well as many cases of people who may be military related but not eligible for treatment at Winn.
In making the initial motion to ask for the 127 percent hospital tax hike, authority member James Thomas said, “The Army is bringing another brigade to Fort Stewart,” and that LRMC will soon start to get more patients because of this.
Hospital Chief Financial Officer Sam Johnson said at an earlier public hearing, “We will lose Fort Stewart,” if the Army doesn’t see a strong, supportive hospital in the community. “That is one of the things they look at.”
Authority Chairman Jon Long said, “We don't put total blame on the Army, though.” He said he felt optimistic about a meeting scheduled Dec. 3 with Winn and Fort Stewart garrison executives. McIver added that elected officials would participate too.
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