Help with New Hospital Furnishings

By Glenn Wallace - Lompoc Record Staff Writer

A loan of more than $4 million will help outfit the new Lompoc Valley Medical Center as it approaches completion, though fundraising activities will be needed to pay it back. The loan, facilitated by the Office of Statewide Heath Planning and Development (OSHPD), will allow the Lompoc Healthcare District to outfit the new facility, which is scheduled to begin operation in February, 2010.

District Administrator Jim Raggio described the loan as “a line of credit” to allow for hospital equipment and furnishing now, to be paid for by the ongoing Lompoc Hospital Foundation’s fundraising campaign that is expected to continue through 2012.

“We just can’t not outfit the building and wait for the capital campaign money,” Raggio said. Carl McLaney, the deputy director of the Cal-Mortgage Insurance Program, a division of OSHPD, said the loan — tax-exempt financing at a 3.7 percent interest rate for a seven year term — could not have been secured without his program’s help.“We help encourage private capital to help with private entity and nonprofit health care,” McLaney said, adding that the program was operated at zero cost to tax payers.

The new loan is small compared to the amount of financing that has gone into the new medical center’s construction. In 2005, Lompoc area voters approved a$74.5 million bond measure to build the facility on the corner of East Ocean Avenue and North Seventh Street. That bond money has been restricted to construction and permanent equipment, leaving unfunded things such as furniture to most of the center’s necessary medical equipment.

Raggio said the budget for the internal furnishings was initially $9 million, but was revised downward to $6 million, to be more manageable to raise funds for.

“We’re hoping that on a $6 million purchase we can get the price down to $4 million,” Raggio said.

Continue reading at the Lompoc Record.