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After more than a year of opposing a lease agreement with the Insight Healthcare Group in its push to keep Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital under local, public control, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors has walked away from its plans for the county’s only hospital. The board had been proposing that the hospital’s leadership form a joint powers authority (JPA) with the county to run the facility, but that idea—never really considered by the hospital board—is now off the table.
The decision was made at an April 15 meeting, where county staff delivered the first budget projections for the 2025–26 fiscal year. The analysis of preliminary expenditures and revenues found a $6.5 million hole in the budget. Deputy County Administrative Officer Rebecca Campbell pointed to several key causes, including rising costs for fire protection services, information and technology upgrades, and post-employment benefits. Included in the projection was $5 million for the proposed JPA with the San Benito Health Care District.
This $5 million was meant to fund a new medical group that would operate under the JPA and help recruit more doctors to the region. The plan, developed by the county and its consultants, was intended as a long-term strategy to keep Hazel Hawkins in public hands.
The county spent $500,000 on that effort, as then-county administrative officer Ray Espinosa told the board during a March 12, 2024 meeting. At that meeting, the county increased the amount it would pay its consultants. The current rates for consultants were not available at publication time.
Last week, the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to abandon the plan and redirect funds to help close the budget gap.
“We’ve got to help ourselves before we help others,” said Supervisor Angela Curro, who was among those assigned to negotiate with the hospital. “You know, put your mask on first before you put your child’s mask on. Our plane is going down right now and we need to put our masks on. So, we need to keep that $5 million and allocate it to what we need to keep moving forward.”
No will to form a JPA
Curro told BenitoLink that the idea of creating the JPA actually died last November when San Benito County voters approved Measure X, which allowed the health care district to move forward with leasing the hospital. After that, the hospital board continued with negotiations to lease, and potentially sell, its assets to Michigan-based Insight. Curro said the health care district has shown no interest in forming a JPA. As far as she is concerned, she said, that conversation is over.
“We would love to still have that conversation, but unfortunately because of Measure X and the board of directors at the hospital district unwilling to go down the path of a JPA, we can’t force it,” Curro said. “We don’t have the ability to force another jurisdiction to do something.”
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki, who also sits on the county’s ad hoc committee negotiating with the hospital board, said that besides the hospital board’s reluctance to form a JPA, the hospital’s finances are “a lot healthier than they were when the county set aside that money.”
On March 21, the Northern District of California Appellate Court upheld a bankruptcy judge’s decision to dismiss Health Care District’s bankruptcy petition. The hospital board has since said it would not pursue bankruptcy protection.
“At this point in time, especially considering our budget constraints, it’s just not prudent for us to set aside $5 million,” Kosmicki said.
BenitoLink reached out to Health Care District Spokesperson Marcus Young for the board’s perspective. He said they had no comment on “what the county is or is not doing.”
The county is still in the early stages of casting its 2025–26 budget and has not yet determined where the $5 million for keeping the hospital public will be allocated. County staff is expected to present more budget details on May 13.
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