PITTSBURG — A Contra Costa Grand Jury has recommended that the Los Medanos Community Healthcare District be dissolved, considering it no longer runs a community hospital, spends more money administering grants than on the grants themselves and does not track the effectiveness of its programs.
The report, which was issued on April 19, details what it sees as the fiscal mismanagement, duplication of services, and a lack of transparency.
The district’s 2017-2018 budget anticipates bringing in $1 million in property taxes and spending half of that — $510,000 — on administrative overhead and $412,000 on the grants themselves. In the past six budgets, four have allocated more money for administering grants than on the grants themselves.
Similar local government entities spend around 10 to 20 percent of their budgets on administration.
The Los Medanos Community Healthcare District did not return calls requesting comment.
Additionally, the report indicated there was no evidence that the district collaborated with the county or any other entities in administering the grants. LMCHD gave out similar grants to the same groups as the county, through the Keller Canyon Mitigation Fund, though the two did not collaborate.
In terms of measuring impact, the grand jury found that LMCHD didn’t measure the outcomes of its grants in any transparent way, nor did it use a community health needs assessment to determine where grants should go.
After exit interviews with grand jury members, a Community Health Profile appeared on the district’s website. The profile was prepared by Dr. Vern Cromartie, a district board member and chair of the sociology department at Contra Costa College.
“When we did the investigation that report was not available,” said Mario Gutierrez, grand jury foreman. “It’s good they are proactive.”
The district came under fire in recent years following the arrest of a director, Emmanuel Ogunleye, of felony assault with a deadly weapon in 2014. A jury narrowly failed to convict Ogunleye in 2015 in an 11-1 vote. Throughout it all, Ogunleye continued to serve on the board and was promoted to president, until he was convicted in a retrial in 2017 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.
The scathing report wouldn’t be the first grand jury report critical of the healthcare district’s operational inefficiencies. It was the fourth.
A 2009-2010 grand jury report, titled “‘Lost’ Medanos Community Health Care District: Awash in a Sea of Inefficiency,” identified numerous grants that were dubious in nature, including $5,000 for a children’s reading corner at the Pittsburg Health Clinic with no books. The district said that the kids had taken the books home.
The grand jury recommended that the Local Agency Formation Commission dissolve the district, set the county up as the successor, maintain current funding levels and use the savings on administrative costs to expand these programs.
“Our recommendation is to expand the healthcare programs that are in that area,” Gutierrez said. “They don’t have an emergency center. I’m not saying the savings would cover that expense, but it could help.”
The district was initially formed in 1948 to operate the Los Medanos Community Hospital. The hospital went bankrupt and shuttered in 1994 and the district has lived on, leasing the former building to the Pittsburg Health Center.
The story is as old as healthcare districts. It took four grand jury reports to finally close the Mount Diablo Healthcare District in Concord in 2012. The Mt. Diablo Medical Center, which was the reason that district was formed, closed in 1996 and the district was criticized for spending more of its money on administration than healthcare.
April 26, 2018
East Bay Times
By Aaron Davis
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