The Guthrie Center Times reports an annual audit conducted at Guthrie County Hospital for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2013, and signed September 20th by an independent auditing firm in Atlantic, showed the hospital’s operating loss last year at more than  $1.8-million, marking the  the third consecutive year losses have topped the $1 million mark. Gronewold, Bell, Kyhnn, and Company, P.C., Atlantic, recently presented their report to the Guthrie County board of supervisors.

Operating losses are now up nearly 500% over 2008. Guthrie County Hospital management officials said in the audit that operating losses are consistent with the hospital’s entire operating history. “The hospital’s operations were begun in 1951 as a county hospital, when it was agreed that a portion of its costs would be subsidized by property tax revenues, making the facility more affordable for the county’s lower income residents. In the current fiscal year operating losses have increased.”

After years of rapid expansion, Fiscal Year 2013 records indicate a leveling of growth at the hospital, as total liabilities and net assets have remained relatively level since 2011. The hospital’s long-term debt has actually decreased slightly the past two years. Although debt has decreased each of the past two years, it is still nearly 10 times what is was in 2006 prior to the hospital’s rapid expansion.

In spite of additional beds added during expansion, an emphasis on outpatient care has led to the average occupied hospital beds leveling below peaks seen in 2009-2011. Increased services have increased total patient service revenues each of the past eight years, but not enough to erase the debt of expansion.

A copy of the full audit may be viewed during normal business hours at the Guthrie County Auditor’s office.