🌲 Commissioners Court kicks Central Health vote to next week 🌲

Another Tuesday, another delay of decisive action on Central Health’s governing financial policies. After more than a year of discussing the hospital district’s perceived transparency, the Travis County Commissioners Court once again put off a vote on changes that would impose new requirements including a third-party audit at least once every five years. This time around, two competing drafts of the new policy – mostly the same with a few distinct differences – were presented to the court without enough time for measured consideration, decided County Judge Sarah Eckhardt. She announced both versions would be posted on the court’s online bulletin board and the court would finally take a definitive vote at its meeting next Tuesday. However, not everyone involved is looking forward to that promised event. Attorney Fred Lewis, who has led the charge against Central Health over its financial arrangements with the University of Texas’ Dell Medical School and Seton Healthcare Family, told the Austin Monitor that he was not happy with the revised drafts, which have dropped the requirements he has been seeking since last year. “One, there is no audit, so we do not have the answers to the troublesome, problematic transfers that have been questioned. And we still have no real requirements that they keep records, that they allocate funds, and that they comply with the fact that their money is supposed to go to poor people,” Lewis said. “So we’ve spent a lot of time and it feels like we’ve gone around in circles.”