Property tax rate for Fairfield Hospital District remains unchanged from 2008 to support a $1.5 million budget for the new fiscal year.

FHD directors voted to set the tax rate at 3.659 cents per $100 assessed valuation, the same as last year, instead of increasing it to the recently calculated effective rate.

The effective rate is the levy required to generate the same tax revenue as in the prior year.

Director J.R. Corne suggested leaving the property tax rate unchanged as a demonstration that the board is considerate of taxpayers.

Adopting the slightly higher rate equal to the 2009 effective rate would have generated only about $6,000 additional revenue for the district.

On a motion by Corne, seconded by Sherry Brackens, the board voted unanimously to adopt the 3.560 cents levy.

After approving the tax rate, directors adopted a fiscal year 2009-10 budget of $1.5 million, about $1 million less than last year.

The difference is that the district cut contributions to the Upper Payment Limits program for funding indigent care from $2.3 million to $1 million.

FHD funded indigent care heavily last year, taking the burden from East Texas Medical Center which changed its focus to funding capital improvements at the Fairfield facility.

ETMC plans to spend $4 million over the next three years on hospital facility improvements.

The district invests funds in the UPL program and gets a return of 30 percent on the investment, which is then being used to cover medical services provided to indigent patients.

On a motion by Warren Awalt, seconded by Corne, the board unanimously approved the new budget.

ETMC administrator Raz Cook showed the FHD board drawings she received for expanding and remodeling the hospital.

"We are still in the design schematic," she says.

First part of the project to be tackled is expanding the emergency room lobby area which will feature what Mrs. Cook refers to as "signature ETMC glass walls" for exterior walls.

The plans also give a rough outline for remodeling patient rooms and adding a new wing to the hospital.

The hospital currently is a 48-bed facility and will be remodeled into a 30-bed facility—-a new 10-bed wing will be constructed first, then existing rooms will be combined into larger spaces for the other 20 beds.

In the past, reducing the number of hospital beds would result in decreased federal funding, but that is no longer the case.

The ETMC facility plan also calls for remodeling the physician office building on the west end of the hospital, anticipating its future use as doctors' offices.