Healthcare districts were once responsible for running hospitals, but their roles have transitioned over the last decades into one of supporting community health efforts. Now, the Legislature wants to mandate they save less and spend more.
Health districts are funded by tax revenue and in recent years they have been spending less than they have taken in. In the case of one district in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, they spent just 17 percent of the money they brought in. The bill pending before the Legislature would not only require that these districts spend 95% of all revenues received, but they would need to give an account of how they money was spent to local leaders.
The hope is to increase transparency, accountability, and responsibility.
From the U-T San Diego:
California lawmakers are moving to crack down on taxpayer-funded health care districts that have banked tens of millions of dollars at the expense of funding community-health projects.
A bill moving through the Legislature targets the spending habits of these little-known governmental agencies that were created to run hospitals, which many of them no longer do. These districts are run by publicly elected boards that have power over multimillion-dollar budgets.
Read the full article here.