About

Background Regarding the North Lake County (FL) Hospital District

by Marilyn Bainter - current Board Member of NLCHD

North Lake County Hospital District is a Special Taxing District that taxes $1 per thousand of property value (1 Mill - or $100 for each $100,000 in property value) for continued hospital services at Florida Hospital Waterman and Leesburg Regional Medical Center (not for profit corporations which pay no taxes). You can find out how much you are paying on your residence or commercial property tax "trim notice" by finding the cryptic line "NL HOSP" which would show your tax.

This is the January, 2009 Board Meeting.

The purpose of the hospital tax defined in State law is simply for “continued hospital services” with little or no oversight of the funds.
There are 67 counties in Florida. Fifty-seven of those counties no longer have any special tax districts or taxes for hospitals.
In addition to the District Hospital Tax, Lake County Government also collects property taxes for indigent healthcare, thus when the Hospital staff says they need the District tax for indigent healthcare, they are already getting tax funds for that expense.
What do they do with our money? Florida Hospital Waterman pays its executives and out-of-district board members millions of dollars in compensation. Additionally, each hospital reports various investment income annually. Florida Hospital Waterman reported $36.1 million in profits and Leesburg Regional Medical Center reported $71.5 million in profits for 2007, but yet they continue to want the District tax to continue.
Our hospitals claim to serve a high percentage of Medicare & Medicaid patients. Actually, our two hospitals do not qualify as disproportionate share hospitals under Medicaid, thus they do not have as high a percentage as other counties.
Our two non-profit hospitals, Florida Hospital Waterman and Leesburg Regional Medical Center, made millions of dollars in profits, while at the same time, due to increased property values, they doubled their county tax collections from 2002-2007.
Florida’s hospital taxing districts have been around for more than 80 years, according to a 2009 Florida Tax Watch report. Their traditional purposes of providing indigent care and ensuring access to hospitals are often no longer the main objectives, as the districts compete with the private sector. They have been criticized for their lack of accountability, mismanagement, escalating taxes, and expansion of purpose and power.
The Florida State regulations that established the Hospital Tax District do NOT require any method to track how the funds are spent, and there are no specific criteria on how the funds are to be spent. Thus, the Hospitals can spend the funds on anything and the current Board does not request any type of data to see exactly where the funds are spent.
The only way to improve oversight and accountability of the Hospital District tax income is to replace Hospital endorsed candidates for the Board, and elect NEW members to the Board of Trustees who focus on taxpayer interests, accountability, transparency and not subsidizing Hospital profits with our property taxes.
On Nov. 2, 2010, Fran Grossi was elected to the Board to join fellow accountability Board member Marilyn Bainter in improving oversight.

This website is maintained and updated by Vance Jochim - see contacts.

North Lake County Hospital District

An Unofficial Website to Improve Oversight and Accountability of over $10-million in Property Taxes Received and Spent by the North Lake County Hospital District (NLCHD) in Lake County, FL