Health-care district downsizes, cuts business manager position

Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District had about 200 employees when it contracted with Adventist Health to take over the local hospital in 2016.

After Aug. 3, the district will have only one employee.

At its meeting on July 16, the district’s board of directors voted 4-0, with one abstention, to eliminate the business manager position.

Chief Executive Officer Peggy Mendiburu recommended the action. She said outsourcing financial record-keeping and payroll will save the district about $65,000 per year.

Mendiburu said the district currently spends about $85,000 on pay and benefits for the business manager position. Since the district converted to QuickBooks, she noted, finance operations only take about 10 hours per week. Outsourcing finance tasks will cost the district $20,000 to $25,000 per year, she said.

Mendiburu said board President Mike Nixon, Vice President Lydia Chaney and directors Christine Sherrill and BreAnne Patterson supported the action. Director Carl Gehricke abstained.

Since affiliating with Adventist Health, the district’s main responsibility has been paying off bonds used to help build a new hospital that opened in November 2018. However, the tax-supported district’s directors have begun to focus on other ways to achieve its mission of promoting and improving the quality of life and health-care services in the community.

“As a district, our primary responsibility is to act in the best interests of the community,” Mendiburu wrote in a memo to the board.

She said the business manager position will be eliminated effective Aug. 3 and the incumbent will be provided with a six-month severance payment.

OTHER ACTION

In addition to a regular board meeting at 10 a.m. on the third Tuesday of the month, subcommittees meet regularly.

Responding to recent changes in board membership, the subcommittees have been reorganized.

Directors Nixon and Patterson will serve on the Finance Committee; Directors Sherrill and Chaney will serve on the Strategic Planning Committee and on the Community Outreach Committee.

More information about the district is available online at tvhd.org.