Manage Invoices Overdue for Public Relations Efficiently

Invoices overdue for Public Relations

an exclusive news channel 5 investigation reveals nashville general hospital is months behind on some basic bills the safety net hospital owes hundreds of thousands of dollars and plans to ask metro taxpayers for more than 49 million dollars in next year's budget but investigative reporter ben hall discovered despite those financial problems the hospital is considering controversial contracts with a former metro councilman nashville general hospital scrambled to pay its overdue utility bill one day after we obtained these emails the hospital was six months behind and owed its landlord meharry medical college more than 500 thousand dollars but even after paying its utilities the hospital still owes me harry more than 326 thousand dollars for renting its parking garage mahari president and ceo james hildreth sent an email last week asking nashville general to pay up nashville general responded access to our subsidy was very limited until january and we are trying to be fair with all our vendors last year the metro council approved more than 40 million dollars of taxpayer money as a supplement that helps keep the safety net hospital open i was the guy who thought to keep them open and alive over there because they do serve a big purpose in our community conservative leaning councilman at large steve glover says the hospital needs to stay open but he had no idea it was so far behind on its bills for you as a reporter to call me as a metro councilman and tell me this and i'm unaware of it that is disturbing but glover was even more disturbed when we told him what was on the agenda of the hospital authority's last finance committee meeting two contracts with a firm where former metro councilman jerry maynard is managing partner therefore public relations and lobbying worth nine hundred thousand dollars but when we attended the virtual meeting last week the committee chair failed to bring the contracts up saying they ran out of time we can talk through those two at our at our next finance committee meeting then it's not the first time a contract involving maynard has come into question in 2018 the tennessean reported a board chair resigned after she claimed maynard was given a secretive contract for 150 thousand dollars to do similar work some on the board disputed her claim we obtained the most recent proposed contracts one would pay maynard's firm 20 thousand dollars a month for public relations work the other ten thousand dollars a month for government relations both contracts go for two and a half years meaning they're worth nine hundred thousand dollars we're paying to lobby ourselves that's kind of stupid glover said it appeared the hospital wants to pay maynard to lobby the metro council for a higher appropriation in the next budget jerry maynard said on the phone the contract extend work he's already doing and it's not unusual for agencies that get money from metro to hire lobbyists to lobby the metro council i think metro general hospital would be far better off to utilize that money at metro general hospital the hospital has seen costs go up during covid and is considering asking the metro council for more than 49 million dollars in next year's budget that's a 6 million dollar increase and slightly more than the hospital projects to make in patient revenue glover said if the hospital approves the 900 thousand dollar contracts he would vote to take that amount out of whatever appropriation metro provides if they give that 900 000 away like that i will fight to take it out of whatever supplement they ask for the taxpayers cannot afford this crap maynard said his firm has done great work for the hospital and he's more qualified than anyone to help general hospital but as the hospital struggles to pay basic bills some question these contracts involving a former councilman a hospital spokesperson said the contracts will actually save the hospital money because maynard and his firm will do government relations work that used to be done in-house the hospital emphasized any money it gets for metro only goes toward patient care and as for those unpaid bills the spokesperson said the hospital is cash poor because of covid but it's paying the bills as quickly as it can ben hall newschannel 5 investigates