The UF Board of Trustees will now help decide how UF Health Shands Hospital will manage $800 million of debt.
The board unanimously made the decision Monday that Shands must consider the board’s opinions when deciding how to handle the debt. Shands accumulated the debt following the construction of two new properties, UF Health Neuromedicine Hospital and UF Health Heart & Vascular Hospital, scheduled to open in December, said David Guzick, UF’s senior vice president of health affairs and president of UF Health.
Guzick wrote in an email that after the debt is subtracted from Shands assets, the hospitals are still worth more than $1 billion.
Shands’ board of directors determines how the debt is settled, but the Board of Trustees wanted to provide more accountability, wrote UF spokesperson Janine Sikes in an email.
“It allows some oversight in the decision making,” she said.
Currently, Guzick, UF President Kent Fuchs, UF Chief Financial Officer Michael McKee and one trustee, Steve Scott, are on the Shands board of directors, she said. When the Florida board of governors and the Board of Trustees examined their affiliates, including Shands, they decided the trustees should be included in these decisions.
Guzick said he welcomes members of the board to collaborate with the hospital.
“They were already involved,” he said. “These are just guidelines for additional oversight.”
Previously, Fuchs would have to refer to the trustees’ chair and vice chair before making a decision, Guzick said. This means the process already included some of the trustees’ opinions, but now they’ll officially be in the guidelines.
He said the debt was unavoidable.
“In order to grow and thrive and invest in the future, all hospitals take on debt to expand,” he said.
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