County Fee Contract Stirs Heated Debate

County Manager Carol Borer Signs Controversial Agreement with
Hospital Without Knowledge of Commissioners

By JULIA WELLS

At a scrappy meeting that saw plenty of disagreement but little in
the way of accountability for the disordered events of the last two
weeks, the Dukes County Commission this week tried to sort its way
through a jumble of conflicting facts surrounding a contract designed to
funnel $500,000 in taxpayer money into the Martha's Vineyard
Hospital.

The money is intended to help defray the cost of emergency services
at the hospital.

Two weeks ago the community learned that the county plans to collect
a $49,500 fee from the hospital to administer the contract, causing
widespread consternation among Vineyard residents and public officials
alike.

After heated discussion at the regular meeting of the county
commission on Wednesday night, one clear fact emerged: The decision to
charge the hospital a fee was made by the county manager, without
consulting county commissioners and without consulting the members of a
subcommittee charged with managing the contract.

The chief executive officer of the hospital was also in on the fee
deal.

On Wednesday, county manager Carol Borer told the county commission
that the separate contract between the county and the hospital was
recommended by county attorneys at Ropes & Gray in Boston.

"It was recommended by our counsel that we have a separate
agreement [for the fee] - it didn't require permission of
the committee to have a separate side agreement," said Ms. Borer.

"Permission? The word I would use is communication. The
committee should have known about it. We could have eliminated a lot of
this with communication. Communication is the key," returned
county commissioner Roger Wey.

Ms. Borer said her decision to shift the fee to the hospital was
intended to save money for the towns. The county manager did not say how
she intends to address the thornier aspect of what is now a clear legal
problem: An inter-municipal agreement signed by selectmen in all six
towns last year spells out a plan to charge the towns for any
administrative fees associated with the contract, but in late July Ms.
Borer executed a separate contract between the county and the hospital
for the hospital to pay a fee of $49,500. The contract was signed by Ms.
Borer and hospital CEO Kevin Burchill.

Some members of the county commission expressed open ire at both the
decision to charge a fee to the hospital, and the way the decision was
handled.

"We have been left out of the loop as county commissioners
- this did not have to happen the way it happened," said
commissioner Dan Flynn. "The fee is a shell game; it's
taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another pocket, and I
don't think we are in that business. I am not in favor of charging
any money at all - to the hospital or to the
municipalities," he added.

"I am on the committee and I never saw any of this and I also
don't agree with this. You are charging the hospital money and the
money has got to come from somewhere. This amount of money is absurd,
and it will be coming out of the hospital. I am really
disappointed," said Mr. Wey.

"In my opinion this whole matter has been handled poorly, and
it conflicts with what the towns agreed to in the inter-municipal
agreement. This would all be a lot better if everybody knew who's
on first base," said commissioner John Alley.

County commissioner Robert Sawyer defended the actions of the county
manager and attacked the Island newspapers. "It is sad and
negative that newspapers tend to sensationalize important county
activity," Mr. Sawyer said, reading from a prepared statement.

"The county manager elected to charge the beneficiary of the
funding [the hospital] for the fees rather than charge the towns as
defined. . . . It would seem that this decision should result in
accolades for the county manager," Mr. Sawyer said.

Commissioner Leonard Jason Jr., who first conceived the idea of
using taxpayer money to support the hospital more than two years ago,
appeared to try to distance himself from the whole issue. In harsh
tones, Mr. Jason blamed the subcommittee for its shortcomings.

"I think that what's happened is we had a committee set
up a contract, and the committee failed to realize that this is going to
cost a hell of a lot of money," Mr. Jason said.

"I didn't draft this - you guys did," Mr.
Jason told Mr. Wey, who is a member of the subcommittee.

After more heated discussion, the county commission voted 6-0-1 to
send the entire issue of the hefty contract fee back to the county
subcommittee for fresh review.

Mr. Sawyer abstained from the vote.

Mr. Flynn moved to eliminate the fee entirely, but the vote failed
after a flurry of confusion over parliamentary procedure.

At the outset of the meeting, Ms. Borer distributed a stack of
paperwork that was intended to clear up the brouhaha surrounding the
contract and the fee.

Among other things, Ms. Borer had prepared the projected costs
associated with the county work to administer the fee, including legal
fees and audit fees. Ms. Borer had also compiled the cost of hourly
labor to take emergency room information produced by a computer at the
hospital and enter it into the county computer to create a new database.

Tom Pachico, a Tisbury selectman who attended the meeting,
questioned the need to take a printout from one computer and re-enter
the data into another computer.

"I am no computer expert, but why don't you just use a
disk and save yourself $30,000?" Mr. Pachico said.

"I don't mind paying reasonable costs, and I don't
think anyone else does either," he added.

Mr. Wey said no one on the subcommittee ever envisioned $49,500
worth of costs associated with the contract.

"We would have been looking at this in a very different way if
we knew that this was going to be the cost. We had 32 meetings; we met
for two years, and this was never discussed," Mr. Wey said.

"That's not our fault," Mr. Jason shot back.

"We knew that the towns were responsible to pay the
fees," said Mr. Alley. He also said he believes the separate
contract between the county and the hospital needed the approval of the
special subcommittee.

Named the emergency medical services procurement committee, the
subcommittee includes county commissioners and representatives from each
Island town. Two other appointed members of the committee, Patty Begley
and Marvin Joslow, attended the meeting on Wednesday night. Both said
that the committee never envisioned a large fee for administering the
contract between the county and the hospital.

There was more confusion later in the meeting when Tisbury resident
Woody Williams questioned the fact that the committee charged with
managing the hospital contract kept no minutes for the better part of a
year.

"If you violated the open meeting law, then everything that
you did can be declared null and void," Mr. Williams said.

Last week Ms. Borer and Mr. Sawyer both said that the subcommittee
had only kept minutes for four months.

But on Wednesday night, Ms. Borer suddenly produced minutes of the
remaining subcommittee meetings. "Here are the minutes if anyone
wants to see them," the county manager said, waving a thin sheaf
of papers.