How do we pay for it?

At this week’s meeting of the board of the Crook County Medical Services District (CCMSD), members revisited a master plan for the Crook County Hospital consisting of four options presented by architect Curtis Hendershott of Treanor HL recently for revitalizing the county’s medical facilities in Sundance.

The choices included an interior overhaul, bringing several operational facets, including emergency and administration, up to a higher standard at an anticipated cost of between $23 and $26 million. The second option is a more moderate expansion, rearranging staff sections into a more efficient design with a likely cost of $25-$28 million.

The third option involves demolishing the existing building and purchasing another piece of land for the new build. Just the build would carry a probable price tag of $41-$46 million.

An entirely new campus, which would include the purchase of up to ten acres in a new area is the fourth and final scenario presented by the architect, but this choice would involve years of construction, relocating the existing street and other issues and cost up to almost $41 million without the cost of the acreage.

Each of these options involves significant funding, however. Board chair Mark Erikson illustrated this for the trustees, “Right now, all we’ve got, essentially, is the Christmas catalog. We paid them [Treanor] to get that. So we’ve got the catalog, full of all these different things so here we are saying ‘ooh, we want this or we want that [but] first of all, we have to figure out how we buy the toy. Are we eligible for loans because I don’t see anybody winning the lottery for millions of dollars?”

Following this thought, board secretary Trish Habeck suggested, “What we need to do is have someone perform a feasibility study where we’ll look at what we can afford based on what we’ve done in the past and what the future looks like.”

“Before we can even say that we want a, b, c or d, we need to know if any of those options are even feasible or if we need to look at doing a very phased approach…” Habeck spoke practically about possible repayment of any loans received, “because, most likely, what we’ll have to do is start with the acute care because that project is what then will have to cash flow the future projects.”

Erikson addressed the specific questions to be answered with the next study, “First is what can we afford and the second is where do we get the money?”

The group plans to ascertain the cost of a feasibility study next. Habeck hopes to report her findings at next month’s meeting.