Unlike its situation in Mahoning Township, Geisinger Medical Center (GMC) will not pay community assistance funds to Coal Township when Shamokin Area Community Hospital (SACH) merges with Geisinger on Jan. 1.
Geisinger will pay Mahoning Township, its host in Montour County, $62,750 in community assistance funds, a 2.5 percent increase from last year.
But Dave Jolley, vice president of public affairs with Geisinger Health System, said Geisinger will not be making a similar payment to Coal Township.
"With a much smaller employee, patient, visitor and other vehicular population at Geisinger-Shamokin Area Community Hospital, a campus of GMC, we do not anticipate the impact on Coal Township infrastructure
to be of the same degree as it is in Mahoning Township," Jolley said. "We are pleased, though, that the merger of SACH into GMC will ensure stable employment for the staff at Shamokin, which contributes significantly to Coal Township and the surrounding area."
In lieu of taxes
The community assistance funds contribution will increase for Mahoning Township 2.5 percent each year through 2016.
That funding is part of a new, five-year Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT, or "pilot") agreement beginning in 2012, for the township, Montour County and Danville Area School District. This year, the school district and township received $739,928, and the county $217,047, a total of $956,975. Figures for 2012 were not available.
Jolley said Geisinger makes two payments to Mahoning Township under its community assistance payment agreement with the Montour County Taxing Authority. One payment is equivalent to the taxes for those portions of the GMC campus not used specifically for hospital services. The second payment is to assist the township with the extra burden placed on municipal services by the significant vehicular and other traffic associated with the approximately 6,000 Geisinger employees who travel to and work on the GMC campus, the thousands of patients seeking care, and thousands of other visitors, service personnel and others associated with Geisinger in Mahoning Township.
Some tax paid by SACH
According to Coal Township Deputy Tax Collector and Treasurer Tracey Hile, SACH currently pays Coal Township taxes on its physician office building, but not the hospital itself, which is exempt from taxes. This will continue with GMC-SACH merger.
SACH currently pays $9,234.95 per year in taxes to Coal Township and Northumberland County, and $6,889.16 to Shamokin Area School District for the physician office building, which houses a Geisinger clinic and doctor's office.
Although SACH, which covers 14.5 acres, is exempt from paying taxes, the Lower Anthracite Community Hospital Corp. pays the county and Coal Township $281.79 per year in taxes, and $210.21 to Shamokin Area School District for .84 acres of property on the hospital grounds that contains garages.
Coal Township Manager Robert Slaby said township commissioners may want to review the tax situation when the merger becomes official.
"It may be worth looking at," he said.
SACH, which marks its 100th year in 2012, and Geisinger, which is just two years younger, are nonprofit entities, and they'll remain that way when the merger occurs.