Local News – Wednesday, December 11th, 2019

City Administrator Ray Walden has announced that utility billing is running a couple of weeks later than normal due to an unexpected one-time need for manual data entry as part of the swap out of electric and water meters for all customers. Customers will have until January 20, 2020 to pay their December utility bill without penalty. In addition, the mailing of the next bill will be delayed until the week of February 3rd. City officials apologize for the delay and appreciate the customers who contacted the Utility Office after not receiving their bills. City of Salem Utilities regrets any inconvenience to our customers. Once the installation of the new meters is completed utility billing will return to even monthly cycles. The following dates will be effective for the December City of Salem utility bills ONLY: a 1% discount for utility bills paid by December 31st, 2019; a 10% penalty if the bills are not paid by January 20th, 2020; bills automatically paid from a customer bank account will be withdrawn on December 23rd, 2019; and the mailing of the next utility bill will be delayed until the week of February 3rd. The City of Salem apologizes for any inconvenience to their customers.

The Salem Memorial District Hospital Board of Directors met Tuesday afternoon at the hospital library. At the meeting, the board accepted the resignation of Sue Terry from District 4 and interviewed candidate Willie Strader to fill the position until the municipal election in April. After the interview was completed, the board voted unanimously to appoint Strader to the board and he was then sworn in by Hospital Attorney Mark Weaver. Once the election filing window opens, Strader will have to sign up for the municipal election if he wishes to be elected to the board to finish out the unexpired term. Home Health Director Ashley Sullins also updated the board on her department at the meeting. For the month of November, CFO Monica Stogsdil reported inpatient admissions stayed strong as 131 patients were admitted with 449 inpatient census days. The acute care average amount of patients per day in November was 14. Outpatient registrations came in at 1,513 while there were 1,883 cardiopulmonary procedures, 7,628 laboratory tests, 1,271 radiological procedures, 739 emergency department visits, 734 rehab treatments and 276 Home Health visits. A total of 255 ambulance runs were made in the November with 184 patents transported with 71 dry runs. For the month, the hospital had a loss from operations of $25,664 with an excess of expenses over revenues of $24,155 after tax receipts. The expenses in November were driven by other contractual services that included those for nursing and also for billing and medical records. Even though there was loss from operations, there was cash increase during the month of $5,750 leaving the days cash on hand at 46. Days in net receivable continues to rise during this time of transition and now stands at 82 days with over 14 million dollars of total receivables. CNO Debbie Hines said there have been four reported cases of flu in Dent County since December 1st. Hospital CEO Kasey Lucas said the hospital auxiliary had the Christmas lunch at J.B. Malone’s with their next meeting to be held January 7th at the Salem Community Center@The Armory. COO Jason Edwards reported on the hospital foundation and they have 13 couples for this year’s “Dancing with the Salem Stars” to be held January 25th at the Salem High School Gym. They have sponsor tables available for $300 each and individual tickets for $20 each. Contact Edwards at the hospital for more information. Edwards also talked about the $80,604 Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program Grant the hospital received to reach low income students in rural South-Central Missouri schools. The money would be used for telemedicine carts to be used at schools in the area including Bunker, Winona, Eminence, and also some Dent County Schools. Lucas said construction work on three areas in the Long-Term Care unit are nearly finished, while the window replacement will be done in the spring. He said the hospital is still working with Todd Van Deventer of Piper Jaffray on revised Request for Proposal letters and a meeting is to be set up next week with local banks. Lucas said the election filing will begin at 8:00 Tuesday morning, December 17th for a six-year term for District #1 currently held by Judy Thompson, and the unexpired three year term for District #4 currently held by appointee Willie Strader. The election filing will end at 4:00 on Tuesday, January 21st. The board was presented a list of the board meeting dates scheduled for 2020 for each board member to review to make sure that a quorum would be present at each meeting. They were to bring back any meeting dates that they would not be able to attend. The meeting then went into closed session.

Preliminary data from the Missouri Department of Conservation shows that deer hunters in Missouri harvested 10,543 deer during the antlerless portion of the fall firearms deer season which ran December 6th, 7th, and 8th. Top harvest counties were Callaway with 396 deer harvested, Pike with 303, and Osage with 301. Dent County came in with 88 deer checked. Last year’s antlerless harvest total was 6,645. Archery season continues through Jan. 15, 2020. The alternative methods portion will run Dec. 28 through Jan. 7, 2020.