The cash-strapped Friend (Neb.) Community Healthcare System is seeking $800,000 to complete federally required upgrades to avoid closure, reports the Lincoln Journal Star.
Friend Community Healthcare must update its electrical system by January 2019. Without the upgrade, the hospital will lose its Medicare funding and will be forced to close, according to hospital board member Nick Svehla.
If the hospital closed, Friend residents would be forced to travel 30 minutes for hospital care.
The $800,000 funding request will be present on a May 15 ballot. Half the town must agree with their solution — a bond issue to raise enough money to update the wiring.
The bond issue request would not raise taxes because the hospital district raised the tax levy in 2017 in anticipation of the upgrade, explained Mr. Svehla. However, the hospital needs the money faster than it has been collecting it from the levy. The bond request would serve as a loan and the hospital would make bond payments with taxes it is already receiving.
In fiscal year 2017, the hospital generated $4.8 million in revenue, but ended in the red because expenses exceeded $5 million.