By Bonnie Eslinger
Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: 06/06/2013 02:00:00 AM PDT
A new San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report questions whether the Sequoia Healthcare District reaches too far in doling out some of the millions of dollars it annually collects from taxpayers.
And in at least two cases, grand jurors suggest, the district may have done just that by funneling money to an East Palo Alto health clinic and to a nursing program whose graduates then leave to find work elsewhere.
But this year's civil grand jury -- the fifth one to investigate Sequoia since 2000 -- didn't probe into the district's justification for continuing to exist. The district was established in 1947 to build and operate Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, now run by Dignity Health, formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West, which took over in 1996.
Grand Jury Foreman Timothy Johnson acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that some concerns stem from the fact the district annually collects about $8.6 million in property taxes and spends the money on a range of health care programs that weren't part of the original mission.
"I think there's just some befuddlement on why it exists when it doesn't operate a hospital anymore," Johnson said.
And if anything, the grand jury report released Monday may fan the fires a bit.
It questions why the district gives $500,000 a year to the Ravenswood Family Health Center in East Palo Alto, even though that city's residents don't pay property taxes to Sequoia. And it points out that many nurses taught through a program at Cañada College and Sequoia Hospital that has drawn $10.7 million from the district are not getting jobs within the county.
"The nurses program appears to have been a big failure, in particular, in keeping track with where these nurses went," Johnson said.
Jack Hickey, a Sequoia Healthcare District board member whose campaign platform over the years has called for the district's abolishment, said Wednesday that the grand jury report underscores some of his concerns but only scratches the surface of how much money is used for "benefits that go out of the district."
Hickey said more scrutiny would show he's right that the district should be dissolved and the money redistributed to the other tax-supported entities in the county, so they could "spend it as they will."
Sequoia CEO Lee Michelson said there's no point in abandoning the district's mission.
"It's about $91 a year for the average taxpayer," Michelson said Wednesday. "Right now that money is going to good health care programs."
The Sequoia Healthcare District includes Redwood City, Belmont, San Carlos, Menlo Park, Woodside, Atherton, Portola Valley and parts of southern Foster City and North Fair Oaks. More than 60,000 people annually benefit from its programs, according to the district, including more than 25,000 public school children.
Michelson said the grand jury was told that the money given to the East Palo Alto clinic served 755 people who live within Sequoia's boundaries.
As for the nurses, he said about half of the 300 or so who have graduated from the district—funded training program now work within the district and the rest went elsewhere because there are only so many openings in the area.
"It was set up as an education program; you can't guarantee jobs," he said.
Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com; follow her at twitter.com/bonnieeslinger.
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_23399346/new-grand-jury-report-questions-rationale-some-sequoia
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