Letter: Follow referendum results, save health care center
To the Editor-
Must we really shut down the Portage County Health Care Center?
On April 5, 2022, voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum for $4.5 million/year for 20 years, for construction and operational costs of a new Health Care Center on land the county already owns. The planning process is well under way, with architectural renderings complete.
The referendum amount was determined by a professional marketing study/business plan by Clifton Larson Allen, a well-respected Wisconsin accounting firm, providing ample funding to complete the project and to launch the HCC in the state-of-the-art facility.
Then came COVID, inflation and a $5 million shortfall — not bad, actually, given 2023 inflation over 6 percent.
Rather than asking CLA to review the original market study/business plan, our county leadership completed their own private analysis of future costs and their own private business projections, which have not been presented to the public.
Now they appear to be using this expected shortfall as an excuse to shut down the PCHHC for good. We don’t need any more hand-wringing and tales of woe.
If you want the County Board to hire Clifton Larson Allen to review our original independent market study/business plan, and then to present it to the public, call or email your County Supervisor, County Board Chair Al Haga and County Executive John Pavelski today and let them know.
Members of the PCHCC Committee and of the Space and Properties Committee need to know that you care. For names and contact information, go to the Portage County website.
Karlene Ferrante
Stevens Point
