Whidbey General legal budget shows possible loss of $4.9 million in 2015

Whidbey General Hospital’s Board of Commissioners adopted their legal budget this week.

Whidbey General Hospital’s Board of Commissioners adopted their legal budget this week.

This budget, approved Monday, according to Chief Operating Officer Terry Litke, is the estimated amounts for budget increases in the 2015 calendar year, and the detailed budget is yet to be completed.

The legal budget is required to be completed by the end of November in order to set the property taxes, which will increase by the maximum-allowed 1 percent, in time.

Monday morning, the board approved three resolutions.

The first resolved to adopt the legal budget and the 1 percent tax increase. The other two were to approve the actual dollar amount increases for emergency medical services and for maintenance and operations, which were $45,537.93 and $8,966, respectively.

The legal budget includes estimated revenue amounts from both the normal operations and non-operating revenues.

Estimated revenues from 2015 are about $107 million.

Operating expenses, which are estimated at about $112.3 million, project a loss of about $4.9 million for the coming year.

Hospital administrators estimates that they’ll have $8 million “cash on hand” to support the loss, which leaves $3 million in the reserve.

The current amounts are estimated amounts; actual amounts will be detailed in the final budget.

Litke said the hospital board hopes to have the final budget completed by the end of November.

“The bottom line on the final budget may or may not be a $5 million loss,” Litke said.

“This is our estimate of what it’s going to be at this point in time.”