By Dewey Terrill

JC Post

Geary Community Hospital officials laid off 22 members of the hospital workforce on Thursday.

That information was confirmed by Hospital CEO Joe Stratton, who noted GCH has struggled financially for approximately two-and-a-half to three years. “This last winter and spring we went through an operational assessment with a company called Community Hospital Corporation. ”

Stratton said there was a lot of study within that assessment. “And then we also had to face the fact with their findings and recommendations some of what we already knew, that we were overstaffed if you will in comparison to our volumes. When you look at the payroll we were paying versus the volume and productivity we had to face the reality unfortunately, and humbly, that we just can’t continue like we have in the past.”

Stratton noted that there’s no question the employees are the heart and soul of the hospitaL and the clinics, but in the healthcare business it’s also the largest expense. GCH is trying to bring back into alignment labor expenses with volume and revenue going forward. He confirmed the employee layoffs are effective now, as of Thursday.

Stratton stated the hospital will start to work on other components of the operation at Geary Community going forward.

Following the layoffs there are approximately 320 employees remaining on the staff. The positions eliminated were across the board in many departments, both clinical and non-clinical, said Stratton. ” We had very few registered nurses and LPN’s out of the reduction in force that were affected, but after that it was really  system-wide. It wasn’t concentrated in any one or two departments, particularly.”

Stratton confirmed that officials believe the hospital can continue provide the same quality care and medical services that currently exist. He does not expect any more layoffs, and said it’s not in their plan or thinking. The 22 workers laid off total 7% of the hospital workforce.

Financial pressures on the hospital have ranged from dwindling insurance reimbursements and uncollectible debt from uninsured patients to high deductible insurance plans, the buildup of local military medical services and the lack of medicaid expansion in Kansas.

—-

Geary Community Hospital officials announced employee layoffs on Thursday.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture will host a Career Fair for applicants seeking job opportunities at the USDA National Bio and Agro-Defense facility on June 4th from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and June 5th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Kansas State University Office Park, 1880 Kimball Avenue in Manhattan.

During the Career Fair, USDA will be accepting resumes and conducting interviews to fill NBAF positions. USDA will be recruiting for IT professionals, facility maintenance personnel and administrative support positions. A full list of positions will be available upon arrive. In addition to the job fair, USDA will be recruiting highly technical, select agent specialist, containment operation and veterinary medical officer positions through USAJOBS, various scientific associations, and other sources.

Onsite training will be provided on “How to Navigate USAJOBS” to assist applicants and educate the community regarding how to apply for federal careers–as hiring for NBAF will continue for the next two to three years before full operating capacity is reached. Eventually, approximately 400 personnel will staff the facility.

NBAF is designed to help protect the United States against the threat of foreign animal diseases and will support global health and food security. Safeguarding agricultural interests and livestock also protects the economy because agriculture, food and food processing contribute more than $3.9 trillion to the U.S> economy each yeasr–22 percent of the domestic economy.

You can register for the fair at https://bit.ly/2LYKPbR.

By Dewey Terrill

JC Post

Milford Lake is currently at 1170.39 elevation, approximately 26 feet over normal conservation pool. At 1173 permission could possibly be granted to allow the Corps of Engineers to release water through the tubes equal to the amount of water coming in. At 1176.2 feet water could escape the lake through the emergency spillway. Right now the reservoir is in Phase Two out of three possible phases for flood control, and is at 78% of its flood storage capacity.

Milford Lake has been at low flow, releasing only 25 cubic feet per second since March 12th. The reservoir currently has a 29,000 acre lake surface area, considerably above the normal 17.500 surface acres. The inflow as of Wednesday totaled 7,900 cubic feet per second but that amount goes up and down. Corps has been required to hold water in Milford and other reservoirs to prevent downstream flooding. The bottleneck is at Waverly, Missouri where the water flow must dip below 130,000 cubic feet per second before there can be any releases, but that has not happened at Waverly since March.

Approximately 110 people attended a public meeting at the Geary County 4-H / Senior Center Wednesday evening to hear the explanation from the Corps about the water management in the Missouri River basin and what to expect at Milford Lake. Obviously concern about potential flooding was on their minds.

The Operations Manager for the Corps at Milford Lake, Bill Whitworth, confirmed right now officials are in increased surveillance mode. “Which means we pay extra attention to the gauges below the dam to make sure that the dam is functioning properly. When the water level reaches 1173, which isn’t too far away, probably next week at some point, we go into critical surveillance mode which means 24-hours a day somebody will be monitoring gauges and just keeping an eye on things.” Whitworth added no problems are expected, but that’s the measure taken at that level.

Whitworth said at 1176.2, which is the uncontrolled spillway, that’s when releases are going to happen ( out of the spillway ). “Yet to be determined if we can discharge any additional ( through the tubes ). ” He also noted, “When space opens up downstream we will get an allocation of that space, Milford, and release when we can.”

There was extensive flooding in 1993 with water from Milford Lake winding up on Grant Avenue in Junction City, and when the Republican River running out of the reservoir met the Smoky Hill River looping around the south and east sides of Junction City water topped the levees and ended up in what was farm ground area on the east side of the city. Whitworth believes some of the1993 conditions are not replicated today. “When we release water out of Milford through the tubes the intent is to keep it within the banks at least for the short term to just match what is coming in so we have an easy managed flow.” He is optimistic flooding of businesses on the north end of the city will not occur. “Right now the opinion is that we’re not looking at 1993. What we can’t predict is what’s going to happen with the Smoky Hill.

If the Republican and Smoky Hill Rivers meet and water backs up there was some concern about impact of that on the Milford Nature Center near the dam. But Whitworth noted that if the Smoky Hill River levels go down that would relieve a lot of the pressure on the river system.

So it’s unknown if flooding will occur, but Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges stated, “The main thing is going to be the effect with the Smoky Hill, how much that water’s going to go down and then start backing up.”He added authorities will just have to monitor that to see how it affects the Grant Avenue and Hoover Road areas.

 

 

 

The Corps of Engineers has released data showing the latest water level information for Milford Lake, which is nearly 26 feet above normal pool elevation.

The Corps has a meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the 4-H / Senior Citizens Center to discuss Milford Lake specifically, and the overall water management of the reservoirs in the region. The meeting is open to the public.

 

Date:   May 29, 2019

• Lake Elevation:  1170.37
• Multipurpose Pool Elevation:  1144.40
• Flood Pool Elevation:  1176.25
• Discharge:  25 CFS
• Inflow: 8,280
• Current Ice Coverage:  0%

Children’s Mercy Hospital will open an urgent care clinic for pediatrics at Geary Community Hospital in early August.

Geary Community Hospital CEO Joe Stratton said it will run on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the Children’s Mercy clinic space at GCH. “We in some way will partner with them. We’ll support them with our lab and our radiology department particularly, for those services that they can’t provide down at their urgent care clinic on the weekend.”

Stratton said Geary Community Hospital would pick that up for them, “and interface with the patients, and families and their staff.”

The plan was outlined at the Geary Community Hospital Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday.

Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings dotted the east central Kansas region Tuesday evening.

There were tornado warnings for southeastern Dickinson and northwestern Morris Counties. plus northwestern Riley and northeastern Clay Counties. Both were radar indicated rotations. No tornado was reported on the ground.

There were multiple severe thunderstorm warnings including one for all of Geary County. There was heavy rain but no other problems reported. Other severe thunderstorm warnings covered parts of Dickinson, Morris, Clay, Riley, Wabaunsee and Pottawatomie Counties.

The good news is that Wednesday is expected to be a sunny, dry day.

 

The final National Biplane Fly-In at Freeman Field in Junction City is scheduled Friday and Saturday. One of the coordinators for the event, Marvin Hornbostel, said this is the final one that will be sponsored locally by the EAA Group. “We’ve been at it now for several years, but hopefully the EAA Group in Wichita wants to pick it up and bring it down there. We’re all in favor of continuing it.”

Hornbostel noted there are less and less biplanes and there are also costs involved in traveling. This will be our last one here at Freeman Field, however having said that we are planning on having aviation-type fly-in’s here next year and in continuing years too.”

For this week pilots will be arriving in Junction City Thursday, Friday and Saturday,  and the big public viewing day is Saturday. There will be a pancake feed by Chris Cakes from 7 – 10 a.m., aircraft judging from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the public can come out Freeman Field Saturday to view the planes and visit with the pilots.  The planes will be flown in to Junction City from multiple states.

There will be a public meeting conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wednesday evening from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at the Geary County 4-H / Senior Citizens Center.

The Project Manager for the Corps at Milford Lake, Bill Whitworth said there are two intents for the meeting. District representatives responsible for coordinating dam releases and determining where and what water released will explain to the public how that works. Whitworth will begin the meeting with a Milford Lake specific update.

The daily lake elevation for Milford Reservoir was at 1169.63 on Monday. At 1176.25 the water would flow out the emergency spillway on the south side of the lake. Whitworth is hoping Kansas City District officials for the Corps will grant a waIver that would allow the release of water from the reservoir at a sufficient level to keep up with the inflow into the lake from the Republican River. Whitworth feels if granted, a waiver would allow the lake to hold steady and buy Corp officials some more time.

The meeting Wednesday night is open to the public.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood warning for the Smoky Hill River on the south side of Junction City until late Sunday night.

The flood stage is 22 feet. Minor flooding was occurring on Thursday and is forecast. At 22.0 feet the water spreads over the north and south banks of the river and nearby lowlands flood.

Bob Shefelton provided a facebook photo of the farmland just south of the river and near U.S. 77 that was covered by water. He also provided a photo of water to the east.

 

 

A flash flood watch has been issued.

Republic-Washington-Marshall-Nemaha-Brown-Cloud-Clay-Riley-
Pottawatomie-Jackson-Ottawa-Dickinson-Geary-Morris-
Including the cities of Belleville, Washington, Hanover, Clifton,
Linn, Greenleaf, Marysville, Blue Rapids, Frankfort, Sabetha,
Seneca, Hiawatha, Horton, Concordia, Clay Center, Manhattan,
Wamego, St. Marys, Holton, Minneapolis, Bennington, Abilene,
Herington, Junction City, and Council Grove
413 AM CDT Fri May 24 2019

...FLASH FLOOD WATCH NOW IN EFFECT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING...

The Flash Flood Watch is now in effect for

* Portions of central Kansas, east central Kansas, north central
  Kansas, and northeast Kansas, including the following areas,
  in central Kansas, Dickinson. In east central Kansas, Geary
  and Morris. In north central Kansas, Clay, Cloud, Ottawa,
  Republic, and Washington. In northeast Kansas, Brown, Jackson,
  Marshall, Nemaha, Pottawatomie, and Riley.

* Through Saturday morning

* Scattered strong thunderstorms are expected early this morning,
  and then again late this afternoon through Tonight. These
  storms may produce very heavy rainfall and flash flooding in a
  short amount of time, over an area that is already saturated
  from rainfall earlier this week.


PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A Flash Flood Watch means that conditions may develop that lead
to flash flooding. Flash flooding is a very dangerous situation.