Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Mike Navarre will introduce an ordinance to appropriate $200,000 from the General Fund to delve into ways to cut the borough’s spending on healthcare.
KPB Mayor Navarre: “It’s to sort of look at what levels of care we should be providing in communities our size, maybe which services should be provided on an economy to scale, within the communities and the size of the population we have, and whether or not we can find some efficiency or savings by doing things differently.”
That ordinance is just up for introduction at tonight’s meeting but if approved would hire one or more independent consultants to research and evaluate options the borough might take in order to reduce health care costs.
Navarre stated it is important based on the fact that the borough owns the Central Peninsula Hospital and the SouthPeninsula Hospital.
The ordinance states that healthcare has also driven up the local Pers and Ters, Teachers Retirements System, and private sector costs so the workforce that could be created may help in all of those sectors.
That meeting will begin at 6 pm tonight but public hearing on the ordinance is not scheduled until February 10.