Singing River Health System retirees for some time now have been papering Jackson County with fliers with a simple message: Please help us clean house on August 4th.
We couldn’t agree more. The Jackson County supervisors must go. All five of them.
For months, they have been negligent when it comes to SRHS. At best, they didn’t know what was going on as the SRHS pension fund evaporated and hospital finances withered. And they may have known more than they’re letting on. Either way, they’ve worn out their welcome. Continue Reading…….
Private or Public? Building a Fiction ~ SRHS Watch
Jackson County is a public entity. Singing River Health System is a public entity. The pension plan is organized under statues for governmental pensions. There is an effort by the Board of Supervisors, especially McKay, to create a fiction that Singing River is somehow private and the county has only some tangential role in its governance. This is demonstrated in the “Memorandum of Agreement” that was billed as being the only way the Board of Supervisors could get any information on Singing River’s finances. It came with the added bonus of a legal framework to shield the public view of those finances.
Both of the above articles well state reasons why Jackson County voters should clean house come primary election day August 4th. Also I noticed the topic of Jackson County not consolidating the Community Hospital system into its annual audit has also surfaced again, most recently on SRHS Watch, a new interactive website focusing solely on the Singing River Pension Plan issues and its intersection with the County Board of Supervisors. This is a topic I tackled twice before here on Slabbed, once piggy backing off a post highlighting former SRHS Legal Services Director Stephanie Barnes Taylor and prior to that in what was one of the very first posts Slabbed did on the topic of the Singing River Financial Meltdown.
It misstates the situation to say the County Board of Supervisors did not audit the Singing River Health System because that is not accurate because SRHS had audits performed every year including the years management purposely misstated the Hospital’s Financial Condition and Results of Operations. In fact it is worse than that and one of the possible implications “of the truth” is actually very disturbing. First to understand what I am saying we need to circle back to that early post on the SRHS disaster, An Accounting Thought:
My point is not to tantalize with the fact I have been doing copious amounts of due diligence on this subject but to make a point to the fairly large contingent of the finance and accounting community that reads this project. Neither Jackson nor Forrest Counties include their component units in with the primary government for financial reporting purposes and both get adverse opinions on the discretely presented component units presented in the annual audits along with unqualified opinions on the primary governments. To the extent it is clear the county owned hospitals are magnitudes larger financial critters than their primary governments (which omit them from their consolidated financials) and Jackson County taxpayers are potentially on the hook for a financial guarantee of over $100 million dollars related to the omitted financials, how in the heck can the primary government not be disclaimed due to the sheer materiality of the omission by failing to consolidate the Primary government and component units. SHRS had audits performed that would allow for consolidation, it appears the case here is that Jackson County simply refused to consolidate its financials to include the Hospital.
My point is had Jackson County properly presented its financial statements and consolidated County Government and its component unit at the Hospital, management at the Hospital would not have been able to conceal their financial problems for as long as they did.
I want to make sure everyone understands this is not necessarily a damning indictment of the County’s audit firm because they are following the lead of the State Agency charged under the Mississippi code with auditing Mississippi Counties in the Stacey Pickering’s State Auditor’s Office. But it does not change the fact that the omission of SRHS from the Jackson County financials, despite the fact the SRHS audit could have easily been consolidated into the County’s overall financials, is so large in relation to the County itself that its very omission makes the county’s financials materially misleading. That said, if the County had consolidated the Singing River Financials, overall they still would have been misleading due to the overall materiality of the overstated patient receivables. In other words, from an auditing standpoint the County Board was in a no win situation, one they placed themselves in.
Today the Jackson County Board of Supervisors claims they had no clue what was going on, despite the fact the Singing River Audit was given to them every year. That SRHS Watch post though pointed out something that was very interesting from the Jackson County FY 2012 audit in the related Material Weakness reported by the County audit firm. To understand why this precise auditing term is important we turn to Investopedia:
When one or more of a company’s internal controls, put in place to prevent significant financial statement irregularities, is considered to be ineffective. If a deficiency in an internal control is thought to be of material weakness, this means that it could lead to a material misstatement in a company’s financial statements.
Here is a capture of audit finding 2012-1 from the SRHS Watch.org:
So that finding, not exactly well written but certainly sufficient under Governmental Auditing Standards, put the County on notice that with respect to leaving off its big component units like the Hospital from the County’s consolidated financials was placing the County and the financials the County presented at a high risk for being materially misstated, which is exactly what Slabbed New Media said in those two old posts, albeit in the jargon of a CPA. So how does the County react to this in 2012? Easy, same as they have every year that finding was presented in claiming they would fix the problem only to ignore it.
My understanding is the County official that took responsibility for fixing the problem, Josh Eldridge, only to not fix it year after year, is running for office this year in Jackson County. If I voted in Jackson County I’d remember that when I went into the voting booth.
Finally the disturbing implication. Today the County Board of Supervisors would have everyone believe they were just as clueless as to the sad state of the the SRHS finances as everyone else, despite the fact it was their job to provide a level of oversight. I personally have never bought into that meme.
So if the Supervisors knew a bit more about the Hospital’s financial struggles than they now admit, what does that say about the decision that was made by the Board of Supervisors to omit the Community Hospital System’s financials from their required inclusion in the County’s annual audit? The implications are very disturbing.
So the salient questions in my mind are:
- Why did the County Board of Supervisors, year after year, promise in its corrective action plan submitted with its audit to begin including SRHS in its audit when hindsight clearly shows they never intended to include the Community Hospital in their Annual Audit.
- Given that SRHS had audits prepared, what where the reasons behind the County Board of Sups purposely omitting SRHS from its annual audit given the fact they were put on notice such omission constituted a “material weakness” with respect to the County’s financial statements.
I’m afraid there are no good answers to those two questions but I’d still be interested to know the honest answer. To the extent honest answers have been in short supply over in Jackson County since the hospital financial meltdown could no longer be hidden, I do not advise holding ones breath waiting for an honest answer.
Amen!
These 5 elected officials appear to be protecting their crony associates but we the public do not know who and how many.
Will the Grand Jury decipher this crooked mess that should not have happened if we would have elected supervisors who were on the ball instead of those looking out to enrich themselves, their friends and neighbors and be reelected?
We have a choice on August 4th; vote anyone else but an incumbent.
I think that a few of the cronies may have already been mentioned here at Slabbed on a few occasions. Some certainty will probably be delayed until after the elections.
Concerning the two salient questions asked at the bottom of this post:
1. Since there isn’t anything but squid ink and bs coming out of the five Jackson County supervisors and the supervisors’ hired help, the only place to expect to get answers is from a grand jury indictment.
2. If I was sitting on this grand jury (unfortunately I’m not) I’d be hoping to hear the five Jackson County supervisors and Comptroller Eldridge questioned addressing these issues:
*Do you know what an audit is?
*Have you ever read an audit?
*Have you ever received a Jackson County Audit?
. * If so:
. * When?
. * Did you read it?
. * Did you discuss it with anyone?
*Have you ever received an SRHS audit?
. * If so:
. * When did you receive a SRHS audit and what were
. the circumstances?
. * Did you examine the audit in any way?
.
. * If not, why not?
. * If so: when you examined it did you notice anything
. amiss or unusual?
. * If so: what did you do about it?
.
*If not:
. * Did you ever hear any discussion about why you
. were not receiving SRHS audits?
To mention some of the possible lines of questioning they probably will not have to face. Mississippi is number one in something and it isn’t getting to the bottom of government waste, fraud, and corruption; and prosecuting the perpetrators .
The Political Arena 12-9-14
Join Frank Corder as he sits down and talks to Jennifer Colmer with the Pascagoula School Board and Jackson County Supervisor John McKay.
Watch John Mckay bite into and chew on that SRHS rotten apple. If you understand the points raised in this post and in the comments then this interview is more interesting than it was back in early December.
I don’t remember if the link to Fran Corder’s interview of John Mckay (December 9 2014) has been posted here at slabbed. I can’t post other than this link, the interview of McKay begins at 14:45 and he says at 18:45: “Ignorance isn’t an excuse but in this case it is a reason.”
So John Mckay will take his share of that bite of that rotten apple, but why is he so fixated on the supervisors and the SRHS budget? Does he even say the word audit?
Ignorance?
Or something else?
He is fixated on the budget because the county apparently was not in compliance with:
The way he words this is key, “[…]it is the responsibility of the hospital to make sure we approve that [the budget]. […] To my knowledge it has never come before the board to be approved, simply because they submit it to us and we didn’t have to approve it. We just have to receive it. And that’s what we did.”
“I’m not a laywer/accountant/fireman/grave digger,” lines are trite and feeble attempts at ignorance. There is an attorney sitting on the dais at every board meeting. The county employs accountants and bookkeepers. It is the duty of a supervisor to delegate those tasks for which he is ignorant.
21:05 Corder asks “At the end of the day what is your ideal resolution to this matter?”
McKay’s response summarized:
1. System should be financial stable
2. Quality of care maintained
3. Hospital should shed money losing operations
No mention of the retirees or the pension. They are just a bump in the road to re-election.
I agree all of these incompetent public officials need to go. Especially Fishin Trip McKay and his puppet Troy Ross. These two rigged the OS Harbor Master position and gave it to McKays buddy thereby repaying a political debt. One of these fools actually came by my house and wanted to put one of their signs in my yard. My ears are still ringing. Guess my blacktop won’t paved unless we get a new supervisor. And let’s not forget the chief of operations at SRHS he needs to go too. Hiding beside the audit saying nothing was done wrong and then running away like a little girl when asked why payments were stopped, why no notification was given to the participants and then not stating publically what was done with the money that was not payed into the retirement account.
I agree all of these incompetent public officials need to go. Especially Fishin Trip McKay and his puppet Troy Ross. These two rigged the OS Harbor Master position and gave it to McKays buddy thereby repaying a political debt. One of these fools actually came by my house and wanted to put one of their signs in my yard. My ears are still ringing. Guess my blacktop won’t paved unless we get a new supervisor. And let’s not forget the chief of operations at SRHS he needs to go too. Hiding beside the audit saying nothing was done wrong and then running away like a little girl when asked why payments were stopped, why no notification was given to the participants and then not stating publically what was done with the money that was not payed into the retirement account.
Senior Supervisor John McKay is commenting on his Facebook page and blasting the SunHerald for printing such a truthful editorial about the JCBOS. Hell, he is still blaming the same newspaper for the Bill and Scott Walker convictions. Everyone should drop in over at his Facebook page and help him come to grips with reality. He does not care about anybody’s pension because he has his 2 already and I bet he does not know if his pensions are private or public.
Hell ya.
No-Way-McKay!!!!
Here is something else people can look at.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Audit-the-Auditor/638471626283442?ref=notif¬if_t=fbpage_fan_invite
Even Santa Claus would say “Ho Ho Ho McKay Must Go !!!” Eye-Spy if you get a chance please post McKay’s Facebook page for all to read. He is starting to come apart, I believe. The pressure is building all around him. Every comment is negative. He should pack it in early, take his signs off of the Transit Authority buses and turn in his keys to the SRHS financial information vault because he never used them anyway.
While you posted the link documents for that particular audit, I believe it important to note that this has been an ongoing notation for a dozen years. Each year the auditors warn the Supervisors of this problem. There are MANY public documents available now showing EACH of the BOS as they rotated as Board President stating they will handle this by Sept of the following year. None did.
The above holds true until recently, when the statement changed. It went from being handled by the BOS President to Josh Elderidge, who followed the same suit as the prior administrations.
Also, I’d like to note that the 2012 Audit mentions one other interesting piece, they say WHY it is not presented… Quoted from the findings: “The county has deemed it not cost efficient to include component units’ financial data in its audit costs”.
This clearly indicates that it was an overt decision.
The more I read about our wonderful, intelligent, educated, honest supervisors; I want to puke!
They could not tell the truth if both of their hands were on the BIBLE.