Health commission adopts Laguna Honda gift fund budget and updates policy

Cha Ma, chief financial officer filling in for Laguna Honda, presented the hospital’s gift fund budget for fiscal year 2018–19 and requested commission approval. Ma said the current gift fund balance was about $2,700,000 (per the third-quarter gift fund balance report) and asked the commission to approve a proposed gift fund spending plan of $471,000 for the next year. Ma said the increase primarily reflects a change in the Friends of Laguna Honda’s approach to donations, moving from direct reimbursements to a lump-sum donation (estimated at about $100,000 next year) to be allocated through the gift fund.

Ma and colleagues explained line-item changes: the active-therapy program line decreased because Friends of Laguna Honda will not continue a small per-neighborhood reimbursement that previously averaged $200 per neighborhood per month; the end-of-life program line was scaled back after a prior large donation led initial budgets to be ambitious and the program infrastructure required phased implementation.

Commissioner Burnell asked whether the planned spending would be fully disbursed this fiscal year; Laguna Honda staff said payments and contracts were delayed by a new PeopleSoft implementation but expected to proceed and that remaining spending would be booked.

The commission moved, seconded and adopted the gift fund budget by voice vote. Commissioners then considered a minor revision to the Laguna Honda Hospital gift fund management policy to align terminology with a newly implemented citywide financial system; a small capitalization correction on page 6 was noted and staff agreed to fix it. The commission approved the policy revisions by voice vote.

Ending: No members of the public requested comment on these items; both the budget and policy revisions were adopted in the meeting.