Desperate leaders want the new Brooksville Regional Hospital's owner to build the pipes and be reimbursed later.
By WILL VAN SANT
Published June 14, 2004
BROOKSVILLE - Two years after Hernando County won the right to provide water and sewer service to the new Brooksville Regional Hospital, the pipes are not in place and the $53-million project faces delays.
To move construction along, the county and the hospital's owner, Naples-based Hernando HMA Inc., are fashioning an agreement. In essence, it calls for Hernando HMA to pay for the design and construction of a waterline and for the county to reimburse the company.
The cost of building the line, which would run from existing county infrastructure along Wiscon Road to the hospital west of Brooksville on State Road 50, is estimated at $800,000. The County Commission may decide whether to approve the agreement at its June 22 meeting.
The need for such an agreement raises the question of why the Utilities Department has been unable to meet the hospital's construction timeline. It also presents a puzzle to county lawyers, who must try to make the proposed agreement satisfy state laws that control how governments award money for public works projects.
For the last several months, county and hospital officials have been working to develop a suitable agreement that satisfies both parties and the law. On Tuesday, county Purchasing Department director Jim Gantt sent an e-mail to Utilities Department director Kay Adams expressing concern over the developing agreement.
Gantt told Adams that he will comply with the County Commission's wishes but that "I strongly disagree with this whole process that is going on. . . . It does not comply" with state or county contracting rules.
Under state law, government-funded utilities projects that cost more than $200,000 are subject to a competitive bidding process meant to protect taxpayers. The work must be publicly advertised and awarded to the lowest qualified bidder.
Gantt said state laws say nothing about governments ceding their authority over competitive bidding to another entity. What's envisioned in public purchasing, Gantt said, is that it be done in the interest of a single client, the public, and that it be independent of any other interest.
The proposed agreement includes safeguards that require the hospital to select contractors in a way that mirrors the government bidding process. And the county can approve or reject any contract the hospital proposes. But, Gantt said, the independence that is supposed to be at the core of the process is lost when the job of hiring contractors is handled by a private company rather than government.
County Commissioner Diane Rowden said it is imperative not to jeopardize the construction of the hospital and that she would support an agreement that is endorsed by Gantt and the county Legal Department. However, Rowden said she is upset that the board finds itself in such a position.
"It's a situation we shouldn't have had to be in," Rowden said. "Come on. How long have we known that this hospital is going there? Hello? It's not a surprise."
As part of a sweeping interlocal agreement reached in June 2002, the county was given the right to provide water and sewer to the hospital; Brooksville was given the right to do the same for medical offices toward the southern end of the property. Because of the final design of the project, which sits on 130 acres, the county later was awarded the right to provide water and sewer to the entire parcel.
In February of this year, Richard Anderson, Brooksville's city manager; Tom Barb, executive director of Brooksville Regional; and Dick Radacky, Hernando County's administrator, met to discuss getting water and sewer service to the project.
Anderson said he had lobbied for the city to provide the utilities infrastructure and told Barb he could have it available by early spring. Anderson said Radacky, however, told Barb the county would exercise its right to be the utilities provider, and Barb agreed.
In an interview last week, Barb said the hospital is ready to begin steel construction and needs to have water in place to do so, yet no progress has been made in getting water to the site. He said he could not recall whether county officials had understood that they were to have the infrastructure in place by now but that "logic says so."
Radacky, office secretaries said, was not available for comment Friday.
Utilities Department director Adams said she and other county officials were under the impression that water would not be needed until December 2005, when the hospital is scheduled to open. Adams said she could not recall when the county learned a waterline was more urgently needed.
Adams' explanation left Rowden unsatisfied.
"The fact is, we haven't had the direction to get this done when it should have been done," Rowden said. "I mean, we had a responsibility. And the responsibility was to get water to them when they needed it."
On March 24, the county stepped toward doing the job itself, asking Gantt's office to competitively bid a $190,000 contract to engineer the hospital site infrastructure. Gantt said he took the request to the county budget office, as is routine, and was told the account specified by the Utilities Department to pay for the job was short of funds.
Although Adams said she could not recall the incident, Gantt said money was located for the work, and the request for bids went out April 16. The county's bid process for the infrastructure design continues but has taken a back seat to the reimbursement agreement with Hernando HMA.
Barb said if water is not available to the site by August or September, the hospital's December 2005 completion date may be jeopardized. Gantt said the late-summer deadline could be met if the County Commission invokes provisions of state law that allow the lengthy bidding process to be jettisoned. Such a move can be made, the law states, when emergencies such as "an act of God, riot, fire, flood or accident" exist.
It is unclear how not having water available at the site meets those conditions.
Barb said the hospital is in a better position to get the work done expeditiously. It has more to lose than the county, he said, and can put more pressure on a contractor to move swiftly.
Adams agreed, saying the county is not able to get the Wiscon line done fast enough. The county, however, will be able to provide additional lines on SR 50 to the site that are not immediately necessary, she said.
Asked whether the Utilities Department, which is spending millions of dollars to upgrade the recently purchased Spring Hill water and sewer network, was financially capable of doing the Wiscon Road project, Adams said yes but that it would require some shifting in some funds, some of which are not as healthy as they could be.
A $2.7-million fund fed by Spring Hill utility customers is frozen because of a judge's order in a case that alleges the county misused the money for nonregulatory purposes. That money, Adams said, was to help upgrade the Spring Hill utility, which the county has managed since October.
To pay for a needed hydraulic modeling study of the countywide utility network, $500,000 of a $1.4-million renewal and replacement fund has been set aside. The renewal fund, which pays for system improvements, is fed by 15 percent of all user fees that come into the Utilities Department.
Given the need for the modeling study, were the county to pay for the Wiscon Road water pipe project from the renewal fund, only $100,000 would remain.
Whatever role the department's financial condition may play in its decision to seek a reimbursement agreement with the hospital, county lawyers said they are satisfied with what has been developed.
"We feel it adequately protects the county," said assistant county attorney Kent Weissinger. "It's a good, solid agreement."
County Commissioner Robert Schenck said the private sector is often more agile than government when it comes to getting things done swiftly and that he is not concerned with how the the board found itself forced to consider the reimbursement plan. What is crucial, he said, is progress.
"It's in the public's interest to get the hospital done as quickly as possible," Schenck said.
