HOSPITAL LEVY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3984, 17 July 1915, Page 3

HOSPITAL LEVY.

COOK TOR £2946 9s. COUNCILLORS PART UP WITH BAD GRACE. _ The secretary of the Cook Hospital and Charitable Aid Board wrote to the Cook County Couieil yesterday, demanding the sum of £2946 9s, being the Council's proportion of the amount required for Hospital and Charitable Aid expenditure for the year ending March 31, T 916. Payment was requested to be made in three equal instalments on the first davg of August, October, and December 1915. Mr H. AT. Porter, secretary to the Hospital Board, further wrote of the subject: • In reply to your inquiry as to the estimated expenditure for the current year, I beg to enclose for your information a schedule of the various items. “As the cost of removing and installing the new hospital necessitated a considerable amount of expenditure not requisitioned for in the previous year, and this being the first complete year of the running of the new institution, my Board has deemed it advisable to make ample provision for the start, also allowing for treatment of any wounded soldiers who may come forward, but it is hoped that itmay be found possible to reduce the last instalment requisitioned for if it is found that the requirements do not come up to the estimates. It is pro-, posed to transfer the (}kl People’s Home and instal the laundry plant out. of realisation of sections owned by the Board, and thus obviate calling upon the ratepayers for further capital expenditure.” 'file estimated receipts and expenditure for the year ending March 31, 1915, were submitted by Mr Porter. These showed that the expenditure was estimated to reach £13,089. the principal items being salaries £3->8!. domestic and establishment- £3605. provisons £2000..

Cr Lysnar asked what the increase was this year ? The clerk replied that last year the lew was £2070- while this year it was £29-16.

Cr Lysnar: An increase of £IOOO. The clerk stated that lie noticed the estimate for fees for the year was only put down at £IOOO. He considered this a very low estimate, and reckoned it would l>e nearer £4OOO than £IOOO. The Chairman said that the Hospital Board had to go in for additional expenditure this year, but it would not he a recurring levy. Cr Lysnar: Next year it will be double. This year they have hail more patients than ever, and yet they have only collected £IOOO hi tees. Tne Chairman said he could not understand this-estimate of £IOOO lor patients’ fees. "The returns submitted at .ne Hospital Board showed that the Board were getting in about half the patients’ fees each moil LI). Or Matthews: 1 hone the Hospital Board will not require xo renew the boilers at the Hospital again next year. They have had tne boilers for a few months, and now they have to lie nulled out and fresh ones put in. Cr Lysnar: No matter what- the levy is we will have to pay it. All we can bo thankful is that it is not more.