Neillsville City Council Receives Clearer Picture on MMC Loan
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 -- 2:08 PM
-The Neillsville City Council heard an update on the $1.5 million loan they provided for Memorial Medical Center at their meeting on Tuesday.Before Memorial Medical Center’s deal with Marshfield Clinic Health Systems, and before their plan to build a new facility on their own, Memorial Medical Center had planned on remodeling their current facility to provide more space to see patients. As the hospital was just getting on some solid, financial footing, they asked the City of Neillsville to take out a $1.5 million loan to provide to the hospital for the remodel. The city approved and MMC has been paying back the loan since then, even with the change in plans that have occurred since that time. During that last meeting, some of the alderman had asked the city attorney to look into the matter because they were concerned about the status of the loan. There was language in the fine print of the agreement between the city and MMC stating that during the payback period of the loan, they couldn’t merge with another entity. A representative from the legal counsel of MCHS was present at this Tuesday’s meeting to better explain what’s happening. MCHS simply has become a corporate member of MMC with a spot on the Board of Directors. MMC has transferred control to MCHS. However, they are still their own entities, with MMC still being a part of Memorial Hospital Inc. All of MMC’s assets, including contracts, the land they purchased for the new facility and the loan to the city, still belong to MMC.
MMC is simply a part of the Marshfield system and the deal between the two is not a merger, consolidation, acquisition, etc. For branding purposes, the “do business name” for MMC is now Marshfield Clinic Health System-Neillsville, but the legal name for MMC still falls under the Memorial Hospital Inc. name. MCHS has every intention of continuing to honor the loan between the city and MMC. Two residents spoke in favor of this deal between the two hospitals. Community business owner and MMC Board Member Kevin Grap began by suggesting, "there has been much focus on the highly improbable when we should be focusing on the highly possible with a new medical complex." He continued stating the council needs to focus on the positive impacts this deal, and the resulting new facility, will have on Neillsville and all of Clark County and that MMC has shown good faith by continuing to make their loan payments. The loan is a 20 payment loan with payments made every January and July. They will make their 10th payment in July of this year. After their payment this month, MMC has a remaining balance of $887,404.90. In the end, the Neillsville City Council took no action on this agenda item.
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