Divided Legislature approves $15M for Chippewa Valley hospitals, rejects expanded use for funds

A hospital emergency room entrance. (Susan J. Demas | Michigan Advance)

Legislation to spend $15 million helping emergency departments in the Chippewa Valley expand is headed to Gov. Tony Evers after passing the Assembly Thursday, but lawmakers from the region dispute how helpful it will be.

The legislation was drafted after two western Wisconsin hospitals and 19 clinics in partnership with them announced plans to close before the end of April.

All but one Democratic representative voted against the bill Thursday after an attempt to remove restrictions on its use failed. The same legislation passed the Senate with only Republican votes Tuesday.

Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and St. Joseph Hospital in Chippewa Falls will start laying off employees March 22 and close about 30 days thereafter, the hospitals announced in late January. The hospitals are part of Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) based in Springfield, Ill.

SB-1014 authorizes the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to spend up to $15 million on grants for health care providers in Eau Claire and Chippewa counties to expand their emergency departments, and it specifies the money must be used for capital expenditures.

Along with the hospitals, 19 clinics operated in partnership with Prevea Health, based in Green Bay, are also closing. As many as 1,400 employees will be let go, according to state notices filed with the Department of Workforce Development (DWD). The region includes 26,300 Medicaid members, according to DHS.

The bill’s authors have rebuffed attempts to broaden how the money could be spent.

At public hearings on the legislation last week, DHS had requested that the bills’ authors expand the geographic range of the bill from Eau Claire and Chippewa counties to include the western region of Wisconsin. DHS also asked the authors to remove the language limiting the funds to emergency department capital expenses so that the department and lawmakers could “work with stakeholders to identify the most pressing needs and remaining gaps in services.”

After hearing from doctors in the weeks since the closings were announced, Randy Scholz, Chippewa County administrator, asked lawmakers to let the funds be used “for all services regarding operating an ER and not just utilized for capital expenditures.”

Those requests were all turned aside, however.

On Thursday, Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) proposed an amendment to rewrite the bill that echoed the DHS request. Emerson said the amendment reflected “numerous conversations” with doctors, hospitals, clinics, DHS officials and others in the region — and with Republican lawmakers.

“There was an agreement that happened in this very building with people from both parties in that room,” Emerson said. “There was an agreement and then it disappeared.”

The revision “gives more flexibility to meet the needs of the area as they arise,” Emerson said. “A few weeks ago, it looked to us as if emergency rooms might have been the most urgent need. However, as we move forward, every group I’ve talked to has been asking for more flexibility. And so that’s what this amendment does.”

On a 62-35 party-line vote, Assembly Republicans rejected the amendment Thursday, just as Senate Republicans had rejected it Tuesday.

Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick), who had proposed the change in the Senate, said the funds might be more appropriately used to support opening urgent care facilities to replace Prevea urgent care clinics that were closing.

“To alleviate emergency room capacity, the remedy is to prop up urgent care clinics,” Smith said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Patients who should be served by an urgent care clinic will now be serviced by the two remaining emergency rooms for care. In turn, when critically injured or sick patients show up to emergency rooms, they will now face delayed care, staff shortages and there may not be a bed for them to receive care. Capital improvements is not going to change that.”

On Tuesday, Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona) defended the bill as it was written. “I believe that what we’re trying to address with the capital expenditure side, this $15 million is going to go fast,” James said.

Recounting reports from doctors about facilities overflowing with patients, he added, “This is something that’s happening now,  and that’s why we’re trying to get this to go through now.”

With a crowded calendar Thursday, there was no further discussion of the bill in the Assembly before it went to a vote. The legislation passed 63-34, with Rep. Sheila Stubbs (D-Madison) joining the Republicans to vote in favor of it.

The $15 million for the bill comes from the state building trust fund, where it was appropriated in the 2021-23 Wisconsin budget as a grant for Hospital Sisters Health System to expand its psychiatric services in the region. The hospital firm canceled that plan and never applied to the state for the money.

Before the divided vote on how to spend the money, legislation transferring it to the Joint Finance Committee’s supplemental appropriation passed unanimously.

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