Local hospital outsourcing department
About 100 local employees are impacted by the move
Adventist Health and Rideout is consolidating its environmental services team with a national organization it has contracted with for years.
About 100 employees in the Yuba-sutter area who provide housekeeping services for the Marysville hospital and its operations in Yuba City were impacted by the decision, though all of them have received offers of employment from the contracting company, Sodexo.
Adventist Health and Rideout President Rick Rawson said the transition, which is systemwide for all of Adventist Health, is a way to consolidate and align both management and staff under one employer.
“This will actually provide more opportunities for those associates in this field that might want to explore growth opportunities as Sodexo is a national organization,” Rawson said.
Statewide, a total of 649 workers from 13 facilities are being removed
cellence and relevancy, these campuses need modernization. Some buildings are over sixty years old.”
The measure includes a long list of plans and projects for the funding, should it be approved, including an increase in permanent classroom and facility capacity for academic and job training classes, general education programs including math, science, upgraded science labs, childhood development education and veterinarian technology programs. Projects range from facility repairs that include leaky roofs, decaying walls and ceilings to updating technology capabilities and improving infrastructure.
According to Houston, the funding would come from the issuance of a general obligation bond repaid by district taxpayers at a rate of less than 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
“By law, these funds can be used only for improvements at our college campuses and are strictly prohibited from being spent for salaries or pensions. All funding must be used for local projects; they cannot be taken by the State or spent elsewhere,” he said.
Opponents of the measure say the District has a lot of nerve asking taxpayers to fund another bond since they are already paying on four others.
In a statement opposing the bond measure, Sutter County Taxpayers Association President Pat Miller said these outstanding bonds total $29,504,047, $65,492,278, $34,935,795 and $26,500,000 and each have between 11-30 years remaining on them.
Houston, however, said that over the past 15-plus years voters have only approved one general obligation bond.
“This was Measure J, approved in 2006,” said Houston. “A portion of Measure J was reauthorized by voters in 2016 to secure significant taxpayer savings. The Yuba CCD Board has issued that bond in installments to keep interest rates low.”
The 2016 bond reauthorization was voted on as Measure Q.
Houston said that funds from Measure J were also supplemented by nearly $50 million in state-matched funds and were used to modernize YCCD’S aging campuses, but these funds only covered about half of the overall needs at the five campus locations.
Opponents of the measure said that many of the items listed as needed improvements are extremely general and are items that should already be covered under annual budget resources or the previous bond funding.
“The projects list is very similar to the list provided for Measure Q approved by voters in 2016,” said Miller. “The majority of the items listed should be taken care of under ongoing routine maintenance. Why aren’t they? Perhaps it is the pension debt the District owes the California State Teachers Retirement System and the California Public Employees Retirement System (that) puts a big hole in the District’s budget.”
Despite the large dollar amount, proponents of the bond measure said that these local community college campuses are critically important and a highly valuable public asset because they provide job training and college classes to more than 13,500 students per year as an affordable alternative to state colleges and universities.
According to the Measure C Tax Rate Statement submitted by Houston, the best estimate of the total debt service, including the principal and interest, that would be required to be repaid if all the bonds are issued and sold is approximately $412 million.
The bond measure will be voted on in all of the counties within the college district, which includes all of Colusa, Sutter and Yuba counties and portions of Butte, Glenn, Lake, Placer and Yolo counties. To pass, the measure needs a minimum of 55 percent of the votes.