Presiding commissioner Scott Fricker doubled down on comments made about the Platte County Health Department’s purchase of a central facility near KCI Airport, and called for the resignation of trustees who voted for that purchase.
Fricker delivered the remarks during the Tuesday, Feb. 21 administrative session, postponed from Monday due to the Presidents Day holiday. He referenced his ongoing correspondence with the health department via letters and document requests, stating while he had not received everything he had asked for he felt the information provided was “helpful.”
Fricker
“I can tell you that when it comes to fiscal responsibility and transparency the health department has not been acting in the best interests of Platte County taxpayers,” Fricker said. “Regarding my charge that they speculated in commercial real estate and lost, that’s absolutely correct.”
He said the project appears to have come in more than $3 million over budget and he suspects the proceeds from the sales of the Platte City and Parkville buildings could be $1 million less than projected.
Fricker continued to question the purchase of the building for the KCI-area central facility during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health department said the purchase of the building had been planned long before the pandemic.
“The purchase of the Kansas City building was contractually obligated prior to the COVID-19 response in 2020,” wrote health department director Andrew Warlen in a letter to the commission dated last week. “The Board of Trustees had been planning and saving for a unified facility for years, which is why when the building was purchased in April 2020, the building was able to be bought with cash.”
The building, located off 110th Street, was chosen for purchase in late 2019, Warlen’s letter states, with a contract executed in January 2020, when it was unknown what a substantial impact COVID-19 would have. The health department shortly after shifted its attention to the pandemic and plans to renovate the new facility were postponed.
Fricker said the health department must have known it would need the $1.9 million in cash reserves spent to purchase the building.
“Despite what they are saying publicly, they could have very easily backed out of the purchase contract by forfeiting their $10,000 escrow deposit,” Fricker said.
He cited statements made by retired health department director Mary Jo Vernon that the reserve fund was used for operational expenses, which the purchase of the building was not. He said by the end of 2020 cash reserves were down to $390,000, well below the $1.7 million the health department’s auditors recommend should stay in the reserve fund.
To solve this problem, he said, the health department competed with small businesses for CARES Act federal stimulus funds, which were administered by the Platte County Commission. The $400,000 the health department received through CARES could have gone to small businesses, he said.
“Those that were involved in that decision should be ashamed,” Fricker said. “The Missouri Constitution strictly prohibits taxpayer funded agencies from going into debt without voter approval.”
He questioned why the board of trustees did not place the purchase of the central facility to the voters.
“Structuring debt like this is an attempt to do an end run around the voters, because you know, getting voter approval is messy, and time consuming and sometimes not successful,” he said.
He said many consider debt financing through a lease/purchase agreement to be unconstitutional, and as such the county commission barred the county from handling debt in this fashion in 2018.
Based upon all the statements Fricker made, he then called for the resignation of those trustees who voted to purchase the central facility building.
Health Department public information officer Aaron Smullin told the Citizen the health department staff had watched the video of Fricker’s comments Tuesday and said the department remains hopeful it can work with its county partners to come to a resolution on the matter.