LITTLE ROCK — St. Vincent System
eliminates 29 jobs
St. Vincent Health System laid off 29 employees last week in a budget-cutting move, Chief Executive Officer and President Peter Banko said Tuesday.
The action is part of a $12.5 million cut because of a “little bit of sluggish volume. Our volume is growing, but not as much as we would like.”
Eliminating the jobs contributes about $2.5 million, Banko said. Earlier in the month, 21 positions were not filled when people left by attrition, he said.
The system has 2,300 full-time-equivalent workers out of a total of 3,000, he said.
The cuts were spread across the system, which includes the 615-bed St.
Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock; St. Vincent North in Sherwood, with 69 beds;
the 25-bed St. Vincent Morrilton; St. Vincent West; and a network of primary-care clinics.
St. Vincent, a private nonprofit that is part of the Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives, reported a surplus of $21.8 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, though most of that was through acquisition of a cardiology clinic with 29 physicians.
- Jack WeatherlyMoney to dredge river
is focus of meeting
Securing government funding to dredge the Mississippi River next year is the topic of a Dec. 11 public meeting in West Memphis, sponsored by the Arkansas Waterways Commission and the Delta Regional Authority.
Severe drought this year has resulted in low water levels on the Mississippi, the Missouri and other rivers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t have money in its budget next year to dredge the Mississippi River to help with the problem, Waterways Commission Executive Director Gene Higginbotham said.
“If we don’t have significant rainfall over the winter, it’s going to be an extremely difficult summer on the Mississippi River,” Higginbotham said.
The meeting is an effort to “get ahead of the game and make sure our legislators are aware of the problem.”
He expects staff members from congressional offices that serve Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Mississippi to attend. The 1 p.m. meeting is in the Marion Berry Renewable Energy Center at Mid-South Community College in West Memphis.
Reservations may be made by calling (501) 682-3427 or via e-mail at katherine.
- Lisa HammerslyArkansas Index falls 2.10 to 241.73
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, dropped 2.10 to 241.73 Tuesday.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 25 on 11/21/2012