Committee backs technical changes to county hospital governance statute

House Bill 1085, which makes technical changes to Colorado’s county hospital statute, was advanced by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee after testimony from sponsors and rural hospital representatives.

Senator Pelton, the bill sponsor, said the bill "remedies" conflicts in current statute that make it hard to recruit trustees for rural public hospitals. He said the measure would allow county hospital trustees to hold concurrent political appointments, permit the board to organize annually at any point in the year rather than only in January, and require the board to present a hospital budget to county commissioners. "Out in rural Colorado, we have a real hard time finding people to want to serve on these boards," Pelton told the committee.

Testifying in support, a representative of the hospital association said the measure updates county hospital law to reflect modern practice and described the changes as "technical amendments." Alan Raichus, a trustee at Memorial Regional Health in Craig, testified about limited civic pools in rural areas and described stepping down from a volunteer public health officer role to accept a hospital board appointment under current rules; he said the statute should be changed to ease recruitment.

After the witness phase closed, the committee voted to move HB 1085 to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation. The motion passed on a roll call and the chair announced it passed unanimously. The committee subsequently placed the bill on the consent calendar.