HEALTH SHIFT
Mayor proposes redirecting county money for private clinic
H“It seems as though there’s a private for-profit aspect to it, and I’m not sure that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
– COMMISSIONER DAVID SHARPE, D-RED BANK
amilton County commissioners are considering a request from county Mayor Weston Wamp to move $250,000 from the county Health Department to the privately owned Clínica Médicos for an expansion project.
Wamp told commissioners at a Wednesday meeting that funding is surplus and won’t be used in time by the department’s primary care clinic, since it had several unfilled positions this fiscal year.
“This is a way to fulfill to taxpayers the intent of last year’s budget, that was to fund public health,” Wamp said by phone after the meeting. “The capacity of the Health Department did not allow these dollars to be put to use.”
Wamp said he anticipates the positions will be staffed in the next fiscal year, which begins in July. The new budget should include pay raises for county employees, including those in the Health Department, Wamp said.
A spokesperson for the Health Department declined to comment by email Wednesday, directing questions to Wamp’s office.
The $250,000, if passed by commissioners next week, will be a one-time investment in a Clínica Médicos expansion that plans to add new facilities for dental and mental health. The clinic broke ground on the facility in November, at a ceremony where Wamp spoke, and estimates it will cost $5 million to complete.
“We think it’s going to be a large asset, if not a national prototype, for cohesive medical care as it applies
to medical dentistry and mental health for underserved communities,” Clínica Médicos founder and medical director Dr. Kelly Arnold told commissioners Wednesday. “And we think that there’s going to be a large return on investment, not only for young families but also for our city and county.”
Arnold was named to Wamp’s transition team when he took office in 2022. Wamp said Wednesday that while that team is no longer active, she has served as a valuable adviser.
It would be unusual for the county to move money from the department it was budgeted for, commissioners said.
“Whenever we start pulling previously budgeted money for one thing and putting it to something else, it raises questions for me,” Commissioner David Sharpe, D-Red Bank, said by phone Wednesday.
Sharpe noted it is the second time Wamp has proposed moving money earmarked for other purposes into Clínica Médicos.
Earlier this year, Wamp proposed repurposing $3 million of wastewater treatment money, which he said was going unused, for various projects in the county including $250,000 for Clínica Médicos. That proposal was dropped in February after commissioners pushed back and it turned out the funds were needed by the wastewater authority.
The clinic is also seeking $250,000 as a match from the city of Chattanooga. City Council members have not discussed that money yet, Commissioner Ken Smith, R-Hixson, who also serves on the City Council, said during Wednesday’s meeting.
“We’ve agreed to work with the county on that,” Ellis Smith, director of special projects for Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, said by phone Wednesday. “It’s probably going to be some combination of money and other assistance.”
The expansion also expects to benefit from another $1 million from the state, included in the upcoming budget waiting to be signed by Gov. Bill Lee.
“That is a large amount of money,” Arnold, the clinic’s founder and director, said during Wednesday’s meeting. “It can evaporate very quickly in sight of how health care is and what the expenses actually are.”
Wamp said support for Clínica Médicos at the state level was driven by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga.
In 2022, Gardenhire and other local lawmakers redirected around $725,000 earmarked by Lee for Chattanooga’s River City Co. to Clínica Médicos and the Tivoli Foundation in equal parts.
The senator once got a COVID-19 test at the clinic, he said by phone Wednesday, paid for by his insurance company.
Commissioners Wednesday questioned the county’s role in funding Clínica Médicos, since the clinic is run as a private business but also has a nonprofit foundation that is helping to fund the expansion.
Arnold said Clínica Médicos runs on a hybrid model of private and public funding. Wamp told commissioners that the county money, if approved, would go through the Médicos Mission Fund, the nonprofit arm of the clinic formed in 2020.
“I’m not familiar enough with the business model that Clínica Médicos operates on, that’s something I need to better understand,” Sharpe said. “It seems as though there’s a private for-profit aspect to it, and I’m not sure that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Wamp said he’d rather see county money go toward a private business working on public health than roll back into the general fund unused.
The clinic serves 40,000 registered patients, Arnold said, and roughly half have no health insurance. The other half are using Medicaid, she said.