County supervisors, Winneshiek Medical Center officials sit down to discuss the hospital's financial condition

Winneshiek Medical Center officials meet once a year with the Winneshiek County Board to review the financial condition of the hospital.  The two groups met Monday at the Courthouse Annex.

While Winneshiek Medical Center showed a $3 million surplus in 2016-2017, this past fiscal year there was a $2.7 million deficit.  WMC Chief Administrative Officer Lisa Radtke says some of that loss was expected because the hospital was installing a new medical records software program, so it knew expenses would be higher and revenues would be lower because of the extra time needed to get up to speed.

Chief Financial Officer Lynn Luloff says other expenses weren't expected--such as a 48 percent increase in pharmaceutical costs.  "That market is improving slightly this year," Luloff told supervisors, but it's still a cost hospital officials are following closely.

Also affecting the bottom line--a $920,000 additional IPERS budget entry and a 50 percent increase in charity care.

WMC officials made their pitch to county supervisors that they "may need to consider" a higher property tax rate to help the hospital.  WMC officials agreed that they use accrual based accounting, which makes the $2.5 million in depreciation it charged in the 2017-2018 budget seem like an out-of-pocket cost.  However, the hospital needs to continually upgrade its equipment and physical plant, so it can't ignore depreciation costs, either.