Silver Bullet Tax Credit Program needs to increase Cap up to $100 million to help rural hospitals

Given:

  1. Rural Hospital Tax Credit currently is capped at $60 million annually
  2. The Rural Hospital tax credit program for 2018 has been exceptionally successful
  3. Hospital donations have ranged from $300,000 to well over a $1 million and possible $2 million
  4. This is this every best method, generally speaking, to get cash straight into hospital operations
  5. Donations have come from private and corporate donors
  6. The Rural Hospital Tax Credit Program subscribed out in a very short while on opening day thus using up the $60 million cap
  7. Many hospitals watched their donation pledges evaporate, some as much as 50%, because the Tax Credit Cap was set at $60 million and this was exceeded quickly
  8. Many hospitals watched their donations evaporate for reasons that they do not understand
    1. HomeTown will be issuing another email soon on questions pertaining to this program, so if you have questions that you want clarified please send them to HomeTown as many of you have already done
    2. The program is in its first year so there will be issues that the legislature has already acknowledged that they need to be fixed
  9. There have been issues
    1. Lack of transparencies as to
      1. who donors were
      2. which hospitals have received how much
      3. How is the undesignated pool was distributed
      4. How could a hospital receive only near zero dollars with significant donations pledged
    2. No reports showing where the aggregate amount of money had been donated to or from
  10. With a $60 million cap and with 58 or so eligible hospitals, the average distribution should have been about $1 million each. If not close to this amount then question needs to be asked about why and how to get there next year. This is critical because the 2019-2020 state budget is being development now of which this is a major part.

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