Treasurer resigns from Perry County trustees board; Hutchison demands access to closed meeting records

Editor's note: This article has been edited to change details about an August meeting in which a shouting match ensued, as well as to correct the title of Marsha Hutchison who spoke during the September meeting.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- On the final countdown before Perry Memorial Health System was to be absorbed by the Mercy system, a meeting in the basement of Perry County Memorial Hospital demonstrated a divided community over the direction of the local institution.

As the meeting moved forward, Perry County Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees chairman Patrick Naeger tried to keep the meeting positive, relaying to the public how proud he was of the staff, the board and the community for the work that had been done and left to do to join the Mercy system. Like Naeger, hospital CEO Chris Wibbenmeyer tried to keep the temperature steady, matter-of-factly presenting reports and information to the board.

Members of the Perry County Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, from left, Pat Naeger, Joe Hutchison and Bill Bohnert listen to comments during a meeting Thursday, Sept. 28. Hutchison and Bohnert are questioning the system's operations.Bob Miller ~ bmiller@semissourian.com

Members of the Perry County Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, from left, Pat Naeger, Joe Hutchison and Bill Bohnert listen to comments during a meeting Thursday, Sept. 28. Hutchison and Bohnert are questioning the system's operations.Bob Miller ~ bmiller@semissourian.com

Sitting to Naeger's right, board members Beth Guth and Greg Unger, voted and communicated in step with the board president, making motions and seconds to keep the order.

But to Naeger's left were Joe Hutchison and Bill Bohnert, bringing public grievances to the forefront and challenging the status quo, asking hard questions and demanding more accountability. Hutchison and Bohnert are defiantly challenging hospital leadership.

The intensity of the meeting swung back-and-forth from normal business decisions such as where bank deposits would be held and questions about insurance bids to Bohnert resigning from the treasurer position over a lack of forensic audits and Hutchison announcing he was seeking the board's closed meeting records for the last six years.

About a dozen constituents attended the meeting, some coming to challenge the board in the public comments. Thursday's meeting touched on bitter themes from a previous meeting where shouting and tense exchanges erupted, including an alleged incident where employees attending the meeting an elderly woman to "shut up." Wibbenmeyer acknowledged that no one in the room was proud of the behavior shown during that meeting. Naeger acknowledged he touched base with the woman a few days after the meeting to check on her and smooth things over. Hutchison's wife Marsha, a former nurse for the internist at the hospital for 20 years, during one of the two public comment periods, told the board she was appalled by the way employees at the previous meeting had behaved and treated the elderly woman. She asked the board, including department heads who were seated at tables as part of the meeting, whether the employees were fired. Wibbenmeyer acknowledged that the employees involved in the exchange were addressed, but he would not comment on discipline actions.

Trustee Joe Hutchison, a retired dentist, voted against approving the minutes from the previous meeting, saying that the exchange between Naeger and the woman was not included in the minutes. He said he believed the woman's rights had been violated as part of Naeger's actions. Hutchison was prepared to read a letter from the woman in the public meeting, but Naeger did not allow the letter to be read. Naeger said the letter could be added to the minutes as a part of the record.

Naeger on Thursday evening insisted on the public comment period being one-way communication from the public to the board, and that the board would hear the comments but would not engage in a back-and-forth argument. While some back-and-forth was exchanged, the public comment portion of the meeting did not go off the rails.

After giving his treasurer's report for the evening, Bohnert, who also was elected as the county's coroner, announced to the board he was resigning from the treasurer position but would remain on the board. He provided a letter of resignation, but Naeger didn't allow Bohnert to read it. Naeger said the letter would become part of the public record.

Bohnert wrote in his letter, provided to the Southeast Missourian, that he resigned on the counsel of his personal attorney. Bohnert wrote that his attorney "advised that a forensic audit of the PCHS books should be conducted before myself and the board take over the financial books from PCHS. This has not been done.

"The board of trustees is supposed to be given the right to ask questions and review the audit of the PCHS financial books. This has not been done," Bohnert's letter states.

In an emailed response to the Southeast Missourian on Friday morning, hospital CEO Chris Wibbenmeyer wrote, "The health system board and the trustees will receive the last fiscal year's audit in October, just as they do every year. As well, in two separate emails, dated 2/9/23 and 2/13/23, the board of trustees have received prior year audits going back to FY18 and to the currently completed audit year of FY22. The accusation over lack of transparency regarding the audit confuses me."

Bohnert and Hutchison have expressed a desire to see the actual books and transactions. They say they have not been allowed to access such information. Bohnert is calling for a forensic audit, which would specifically look for fraudulent activities, where a typical financial audit is more about understanding the financial wellbeing of an organization.

In a third item listed as a reason for his resignation, Bohnert wrote he disagreed with the rehiring of Mike Ellis as a part-time accountant for the hospital. Ellis was the hospital's previous CFO, but moved to Texas to take another position. In Bohnert's letter, he stated Ellis' compensation, based on 10 hours per week, would come to about $70,000. Wibbenmeyer addressed this issue during the meeting separate from Bohnert's resignation, saying it would be up to the trustees if they wanted to go with Ellis or a local accountant. Wibbenmeyer said the advantage of Ellis's ongoing remote involvement is that he had institutional knowledge, but Wibbenmeyer also conceded that doing the work remotely would come with certain challenges. The board did not take action on the matter at Thursday's meeting.

At the end of the meeting, Hutchison expressed that he was seeking the closed-meeting minutes of the board of trustees for the last six years, citing a 2016 amendment to Missouri's open meetings act that states that "access to verbatim recordings shall be provided to duly elected officials or appointed officials filling a vacancy of an elected office in a public body."

Meanwhile, this week Perry County Memorial employees have begun the transition to a Mercy-operated hospital.

"Tomorrow's a pretty big day," Naeger said Thursday night. "We start a big journey. It took a long time to get here. I want to tell these people in the room in front of me, how awesome you have done. And my fellow board members, I commend you, this has been a long year, a lot of hours, a lot of time, because these people right here really and the whole team at Perry County Memorial Hospital. This is a really, really big day, tomorrow in the history of this amazing institution that's been around for a long time, 60 years, plus. This is probably one of the biggest changes and transformations we will see. I feel with all my heart that this is going to be a great opportunity for this community."