JPS to restart a steering committee for its $1.5 billion bond program
JPS Health Network will resurrect a steering committee for the hospital’s 2018 bond program, which is expected to cost more than $1.5 billion when it is finished.
The aim, JPS leaders say, is to improve communication with Tarrant County commissioners, who are represented on the committee.
The county’s hospital district, which operates JPS Health Network, is building several major projects on its main campus after voters approved $800 million in bond funding in 2018. By last year, hospital leaders said they expect the projects will end up costing more than $1.5 billion. In addition to the $800 million in bond funding, the projects will be paid out of JPS reserves.
Roger Fisher, the new chair of the JPS board of managers, announced Thursday that the steering committee would resume operations for the first time since 2022 so that county commissioners and board members could “have open and frank communication.” The group will include representatives of both entities.
The committee will serve in an advisory role as the JPS board continues to oversee the bond projects, Fisher said.
“We may find that there are some policy changes that need to happen as part of the overall package that that group would recommend to … the board of managers to change the policy,” Fisher said.
In 2018, when Tarrant County voters overwhelmingly approved the $800 million for JPS, the ballot they saw said the funding would support projects “including, but not limited to, a new mental health and behavioral health hospital,” as well as “four new regional health centers.”
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the start of the projects. When hospital leaders revisited plans for the bond funding, they decided to focus on the hospital’s new psychiatric emergency room and behavioral health hospital. Plans for the regional health centers were deprioritized, hospital leaders said last year, but elected officials disagreed about which projects would be paid by the bond funding.
Fisher said he expects the committee to begin meeting before the end of March.
The hospital district is considered a component unit of Tarrant County government, giving commissioners the final say on the district’s tax rate and an advisory role on other matters.
