Just before the Austin City Council’s Wednesday work session last week,
the
release of the long-awaited Seton Medical Center/Brackenridge Hospital lease
agreement brought out a crowd of angry hospital employees, women’s health
advocates, and minority groups for a heated press conference.
Speakers accused the city of shortchanging Brack employees and of putting
women’s health programs at risk, and also criticized the lack of support
material in the agreement. The 95-page document is missing a number of
“schedules” detailing such things as Seton’s responsibility for the Charity
Care Program and Specialty Clinic Services, and other programs. Several
speakers also complained that the “Provider Agreement” portion of the lease,
which lays out the terms under which Seton will be required to provide indigent
care, lacked a proper listing of those terms.
Carole Guthrie, business manag-er of the Association of Federal, State,
County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), castigated councilmembers during the
work session for the proposal’s pension plan. As it is, Seton has agreed to
hire on all Brack’s 1,647 current employees. Since their pensions will not be
transferable, the city has agreed to keep on the city payroll those employees
who have worked at the hospital for 23-24 years, and who can retire when they
reach their 25th year. All other employees will have their pensions with the
city frozen, then start over at Seton at year one. The effect, Guthrie says,
will be that people who want to retire after 25 years won’t be able to do so
with a full pension. Even those who wait until they are 65 won’t get the same
amount they would have had, had the city continued to let their pensions
grow.
Guthrie is asking that the city move the cutoff point to include employees
with 20 years or more, 55 of the hospital’s 1,647 staff members. “There’s no
right cutoff,” she says. “But when you’ve been there 20 plus years, gosh,
you’ve only got three to go. Those people have given their lives to the city
and the community, and for the city council to do this is outrageous.”
Councilmember Jackie Goodman asked Seton CEO Charles Barnett if the
hospital would be open to changes in the lease, such as the one Guthrie
suggested. Barnett equivocated, saying that the hospital’s board would likely
not support something that “changes the geometry” of the lease.
“Seton’s lawyers were sitting right in front of me and they were shaking
their heads `no’,” Guthrie says. “They [city staff] haven’t even released all
the schedules and they’re asking for a decision. That tells me they don’t care
what’s in it because a decision has already been made.”
Meanwhile, women’s health advocates charge that the lease does not go far
enough in assuring that reproductive services will be maintained under the
Catholic administration. But city officials contend that the lease protects
current levels of services at Brack, including access to sterilizations,
contraception, and “emergency medications” that prevent conception, like the
“morning after” pill for rape victims. Brack currently refers women elsewhere
for abortions, which will continue to be the case, according to City Manager
Jesus Garza.
The lease does reference the 1994 U.S. Catholic bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic
Healthcare Facilities, stating that the city will never require Seton to
provide any service that contradicts those guidelines. However, things that are
specifically mentioned in the lease but are forbidden under the bishops’ rules
– like vasectomies and contraception – will be provided. Women may lose out
when it comes to things like RU 486 – an abortion pill that is not yet legal in
the U.S. but used widely in other countries – if it ever becomes available
here. Also, women’s health advocates claim, the Seton-managed hospital is not
going to provide abortions for things like ectopic pregnancies, or when a
pregnant woman’s life is in danger.
Glenda Parks, executive director of Austin’s Planned Parenthood, says that
PP officials worked with the city and hospitals in crafting the reproductive
services section, and she feels they reached a good compromise. “They made a
good faith effort to hold these things at arms length and say, `Okay, these
aren’t available at Seton, but they will be available at Brackenridge because
we know it’s a different situation’,” she says.
City staff said the missing schedules will be made available to
councilmembers before the
May 25 vote on the lease. A public hearing is set
for 6pm tonight (May 18) in council chambers.
A final vote on the sale of the Yellow Checker Cab Company
franchise to the American Cab Company has been set for June 1. Yellow driver
Roy Dunlap, who owns his own cab, told councilmembers that he supports the
sale, but that the issue raises a question of drivers’ autonomy. Currently, he
says, there are only a limited number of permits, which are issued to the
companies rather than to the drivers. This means that independent drivers
cannot freely choose what company to work for, but instead have to wait for a
company with an open permit. A solution, Dunlap says, would be to issue permits
to drivers who could then move as free agents to the company of their
choice.
The city has 21 permits to issue some time in the near future, and Dunlap
proposed that these be given to drivers with seniority. Councilmember Ronnie
Reynolds commented that licensing drivers as well as companies could be a
bureaucratic mess, but that he would consider the idea nonetheless.
Council postponed indefinitely a vote on whether to extend
waste-water services to 96 homes in the Northwest Travis County MUD #1. This is
the same MUD that is the subject of a Senate bill by Gonzalo Barrientos
(D-Austin), prohibiting Austin from annexing the area until 75% of the
district’s sewage connections are hooked up. “Brigid brought it to the
attention of the group that this is one of the groups bashing Austin, so they
decided to put the vote off until the end of the [legislative] session,”
explains Tom Selby, aide to Councilmember Brigid Shea.
Only one person testified at a public hearing to change the
city’s
land development code regarding urban watersheds. Currently, anyone who builds
in one of Austin’s watersheds – mostly in areas around Shoal, Waller, and Boggy
creeks – gets to choose whether to build a retention pond on the property or
pay a fee to the city to build a pond downstream. City environmental staffer
Joe Calabrese says that “there have been cases in the recent past where the
development in question was paying the fee instead of building the pond. But
the problem was, the planning commission felt there was no place downstream
from the property to build a pond.”
So the Planning Commission is proposing that the choice be taken from
builders and given to city staff – a move some say is likely to be unpopular
with real estate interests. Only local environmental activist Al St. Louis
showed up to comment on the proposal, however, and council voted at Eric
Mitchell’s request to send the matter to the Planning Committee and
Environmental Board for more discussion.
This week in council, Councilmembers will consider:
- a Community Development Block Grant housing loan for the Center for
Battered Women to buy a five-acre plot on Grover Boulevard - 68 appointments to 30 various city boards, commissions, and
committees - $1.36 million in contracts for services to Brackenridge Hospital for the
next year.
This article appears in May 19 • 1995 and May 19 • 1995 (Cover).