Carle Roundup

This week there were a few stories where Carle and local government intersected. From mobile clinic programs mentioned in their presentation to the Champaign Community Coalition last month, to news about the Carle Auditory Oral School, back to the property tax disagreements that always seem to be in the background.

First on the mobile clinic. From Tuesday's News-Gazette:

Carle launching mobile health clinic to target neighborhoods in need
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The care provided in the mobile clinic won't be free, but everyone will be served regardless of their ability to pay, she said.

The mobile clinic will accept health insurance and Medicaid, and the uninsured who can't pay will be linked to Carle's financial-assistance program, she said.

Researchers found the most disparities in health outcomes locally in the Garden Hills area of Champaign, but other pockets in the northern corridor of the community have also been identified for it to target down the road, Sellett said. Carle plans to partner with schools and churches to secure locations where it can park, she said.

Health disparities are caused by a number of factors, among them where people live and environmental factors that can lead to disease — plus social inequities such as differences in behaviors, access to health services, economic status and literacy levels, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

In fact, just 20 percent of a person's health is a result of what's in their DNA, Sellett said. Another 30 percent is linked to the kinds of day-to-day decisions — good or bad — that a person makes, and the other 50 percent is tied to social and environmental determinants, she said.

The mobile health clinic is being made possible through donations of Carle and Health Alliance Medical Plans employees, proceeds from the 2017 Carle Golf Open and other donations, according to Carle.

Full article here. Also a brief summary of their Healthy Beginnings presentation at the Community Coalition:

They are developing a 20 year plan that ranges from individual care through interpersonal, community and organizations all the way to policy towards ensuring access to health care resources. They are currently embedded in the Garden Hills community and hoping to bring in a mobile medical unit and other resources such as education opportunities to the community.

On Wednesday the News-Gazette highlighted the Carle Auditory Oral School:

At Carle's school for hearing impaired, graduation day full of sounds of success
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Those graduating are usually children who are introduced to sound at an early age and have access to intervention before their third birthday, said CAOS Director Danielle Chalfant.

However, no matter what stage the child is in during the learning process, the program will always accept new members, she said.

"We meet children and families where they are," Chalfant said. "There are a lot of programs that base a child's eligibility on whether they can make their hearing disability unnoticeable in two years. We don't do that."

Chalfant, who has been at CAOS for 20 years, said money has never been the decision-making factor when considering a child for the program. A scale based on income and family size is used to make sure all families can have access, she said.

Full article here. And finally on property taxes, the News-Gazette had the latest information in their Friday edition. These quick excerpts only highlight a couple of the arguments made while summarizing the issue. The full article gives a better overall look at what the dispute is about and what both sides are arguing. It honestly makes my head spin a bit:

Carle attorney: Property-tax fight based on 'dead wrong' assessments
Former Cunningham Township Assessor Joanne Chester was "dead wrong" when she assessed the full values of four key Carle properties more than a decade ago, one of Carle's attorneys contended at a lengthy court hearing Thursday...

His arguments — and those from attorneys representing state and county taxing authorities — were raised in the hearing before Judge Randy Rosenbaum, which ended with the judge taking it all under advisement.

He'll likely issue a written ruling at an unspecified later date, he said.

What Rosenbaum is deciding is a motion originally filed by Carle last August seeking a judgment that would effectively open the door to it receiving refunds on property taxes it paid from 2004 to 2011 on four Urbana properties — Carle Foundation Hospital at 611 W. Park St., as well as its facilities at 809 W. Park St., 503 N. Coler Ave. and 607 N. Orchard St.

Carle paid $20.7 million in property taxes to local governments under protest on those properties...

Fletcher further argued that Carle waited an unreasonable amount of time to bring its claim based on a wrongful failure of taxing authorities, and that the delay caused an unfair damage to taxing districts. The loss to the county alone, should Carle prevail, would be more than $1.4 million, he said.

Fred Grosser, the attorney for the township, township assessor and Urbana, said Chester had learned in 2003 from the Department of Revenue that she hadn't been properly assessing properties that had previously been determined to be exempt or partially exempt and, based on that, made a change in her procedures.

One of the problems with Carle's claim is that none of the four properties had been in exclusive charitable use, and they'd qualified only for partial exemptions, he said.

More at the full article here.