SMH Board begins tax/budget season

SMH Board begins tax/budget season News Staff Tue, 07/02/2024 - 4:22 pm Stephens Memorial Hospital CEO Brian Roland discusses the 2025 SMH budget during a board of trustees meeting Thursday, June 28. Photo/Mike Williams By Mike Williams news@breckenridgeamerican.com Tax rate and budget season is quickly approaching across the state of Texas. Stephens Memorial Hospital began early work on a new budget last week. The SMH Board of Directors met Thursday, June 28 and discussed the budget timeline as CEO Brian Roland discussed upcoming changes to how the budget will be created and possible changes that could need to be made later in the year after a new budget is passed. Budget talks began with Roland discussed taking a deeper look at statistics to better justify where money needs to be spent and where less can be budgeted. “The budget for 2025 is going to be broken into a couple of pieces this year. Normally (mainly look at the) budget. We don’t look at (full-time employees) we don’t necessarily look at stats,” Roland said. “This time we’re going to go backwards.” Roland said he shared 2024 budget projections with the heads of each of the hospital departments. The projections show year-to-date financial information next to where it’s projected the hospital will be at the end of the fiscal year. The projections include the 2024 budgeted amounts and the variance between the 2024 projections and what was budgeted. For example the YTD patient revenue was $7,307,884 as of Friday, May 31. The projected amount of patient revenue based on this amount at the end of the fiscal year is $10,0961,826. This is $1,335,678 less than the budgeted amount of $12,297,504. “This is just detailed data more for the department heads,” Roland said. “I wanted to share …Where we are with each thing and try to figure out why.” An example Roland provided was reasons for variances in contracted labor and salaries and wages. Projected end-of-year amounts for salaries and contract labor are expected to be higher than budgeted due to increases in staffing in the wellness center and walk-in clinic. “This is a snapshot of where we are based on budget,” Roland said. “We don’t necessarily always look at the budget, we just look at year to date or year over year.” Roland said the budget is going to be more based on statistics rather than projections. This will give departments quantitative information to better justify their budgets. The budget will be created and passed under the current Prospective Payment System that the hospital currently operates under. Over the last year the hospital has been working through the process with the state to become a Critical Access Hospital. Switching to a CAH model will allow the hospital to receive cost-based reimbursement and other benefits to help reduce costs and improve access. “The challenge with this budget is that it’s being built on the PPS methodology,” Roland said. “What could end up happening at some point in January or February, we could end up looking at a revised critical access budget.” Roland said he tried to create a budget under critical access but said there were too many variables that he did not know and could create large variances from what percentages the hospital will receive in its reimbursements. Budget/tax rate timelineAt the July 25 board meeting the board of directors will discuss and propose a 2024 tax rate and schedule a public hearing. The board will also review a draft of the 2025 budget. The public hearing for the proposed tax rate is expected to be scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 29 at 5 p.m. On Aug. 29, following the tax hearing, the board will vote whether or not to adopt the tax rate and budget. This timeline sets the board up to be finished with its tax and budget season a month early. The Sept. 26 meeting will be used to make any necessary corrections. News