An appropriation bill discussion during the Osage Nation Congressional 4th Special Session announced the closure of Osage Home Health as it was worded with a $150,000 request for associated costs to cease operations.
After discussion, the Ninth ON Congress voted 11-0 to pass bill ONCA 25-35 (sponsored by Congresswoman Jodie Revard) seeking the $150,000, which comes from tribal funding. During a Feb. 25 Congressional Appropriations Committee meeting, Revard, who is also committee chair, mentioned the intended use for the requested funding.
“The Home Health Board made a motion to close themselves to some degree as an entity and we have a couple of things going on, we have past expenses, liabilities that they had out there,” Revard said. “So what happened is they were having a meeting and the chair at the time reached out and I referred her to the Treasury because she had questions about their financials and some uncertainty, so I said ‘I think you need to reach out to our Treasury Department, see if the Treasurer will help you gather the information you need or at least somebody analyze and look at your current financial situation.’”
Formerly based in a Pawhuska office, Osage Home Health had a years-long presence serving communities in North Central Oklahoma with patient services including wound assessment and treatments, IV therapy, teaching self-care methods and home health aide care, according to its website.
“The Treasurer (Clark Batson) has sent out an appropriation request to handle the expenses that were there at that time,” Revard told the Committee as she asked Batson to join the discussion.
“All I know is the cash flow has not been sufficient to cover operations in at least a year,” Batson said. “I’m not a health expert, all I know is you need more patients to bill more and bring in more money to cover the expenses and that hasn’t been happening.”
In the final steps, the Home Health Board “essentially dissolved themselves to some degree, the board’s gone, the employees are gone, the accountant’s gone, everyone’s gone, and it’s been in my lap,” Batson said, adding Information Technology staff is helping him access the Home Health accounting software to get more detailed records.
Congresswoman Whitney Red Corn asked Batson what types of expenses will be covered by the requested funding. He noted there will be expenses associated with employee payroll, vendors, state taxes, federal withholdings, as well as cut checks dating back to December that have yet to be paid due to insufficient funds.
With Home Health closed for patient care, Revard asked what happened to the patient records. Batson said those records were sent to the Nation’s Archives Department, which Secretary of Administration Susan Bayro confirmed.
“We had Archives go down there before (Home Health) closed and they packed all the files, everything in boxes. Remember when you talk about archives, they’re very detailed, they have a list of what goes in those boxes and they’re taking them down to the Archives warehouse,” Bayro said.
Revard told the committee legislative action on the Home Health’s status would need to be addressed at a later time. “What’s not on the proclamation is whether or not we’re going to keep this entity alive or not because it will take a vote of Congress through a resolution and the Chief’s office, so that would entail us having conversations with the Executive Branch, this is brand new to us. He would have to, if Congress agrees to keep this entity, which is not under the Health Authority Board, it’s under the Executive Branch, then Kihekah would have to appoint three new board members … (the prior members) all resigned.”
On March 4, Congress voted 11-0 to pass ONCA 25-35 with one absence from Congresswoman Brandy Lemon. Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear signed the bill into law afterward.
