For the first time in more than a decade every seat up for election on the West Volusia Hospital Authority Board of Commissioners will be contested during an election that is shaping up to be a referendum on the agency’s recent decision to dramatically raise taxes.
Seven candidates have qualified to run for three seats — among them two incumbents, two former Deltona commissioners, a DeLand physician who is currently a School Board member, and two former Hospital Authority board members.
The bullseye for many of the newer candidates is the 49 percent tax increase approved last year by the Hospital Authority to shore up its $20 million budget. Some saw it as a sign of mismanagement by an out of touch board whose members treat their positions as a stepping stone to higher office.
“You don’t have to look very far to figure out why this is happening when you raise people's taxes,” said Brian Soukup, a former Deltona city commissioner who is running for a four-year term.
Hospital Authority board members serve staggered terms, depending on which seat they hold. “Group A” terms are two years and “Group B” seats have four year terms.
Soukop is challenging Kathie Shepard, who has been a board member for eight years. He said more transparency and accountability were two things he wished to bring to the governmental body.
Commissioner Dolores Guzman, who was appointed to finish the term of the late Ross Dickinson, will face challenger Webster Barnaby, also a former Deltona commissioner. And the seat being vacated by Commissioner Barbara Girtman, who is gunning for a County Council seat, has drawn three candidates.
The open field for Girtman’s seat includes: Dr. John Hill, a family medicine physician and Volusia County School Board member who will not be seeking re-election for that position; Raymond Long, a retired gym owner who was previously on the Hospital Authority board; and Voloria Manning, who serves on the agency’s citizens advisory committee and also once sat on the board.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the tax increase has brought us above the radar and people started paying attention to what they’re doing,” Shepard said.
“When people become aware, they pay more attention.”
The Hospital Authority is one of three health-related special taxing districts functioning in Volusia County. Since boards for the other two — the Halifax Hospital District and the Southeast Volusia Hospital District — are appointed by the governor and serve a single hospital, the Hospital Authority is also unique.
It serves more than 1,800 residents who must qualify in the same way that people must apply for Medicaid or Medicare. To serve those “health card” members, the agency contracts with various local health and social service providers.
In 2017, board members raised taxes for the first time in three years on account of rising enrollment and the increased use of specialty care. The tax increase created $7.4 million in new revenue to serve the health care needs of poor residents who live in West Volusia.
At the final budget meeting Long, a former Hospital Authority board member, warned there could be a backlash. Now Long is running for a seat again in hopes of steadying the ship, he said.
In recent years, the agency adopted a position that it should also do outreach so residents were aware of the programs offered. Long said board members mistepped when they decided to spend $100,000 on an advertising campaign and spend down some $12 million in reserves.
The decision coincided with a steady rise in health card enrollment.
“That was not about the mission statement of the West Volusia Hospital Authority,” Long said. “There were a lot of things that should not have been funded and that’s why they had to raise their taxes.”