U.S. Offers $410 Million to Fix or Replace County-USC

More than two years after the Northridge earthquake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has offered to pay nearly $410 million to Los Angeles County to rebuild or replace the nation’s busiest public hospital, it was disclosed late Friday.

The agreement, which ends protracted negotiations over earthquake damage to County-USC Medical Center, was placed late Friday on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda for final approval on Tuesday.

In a memorandum to the supervisors, county Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed said the $409.9 million in federal and state funds will be “used to repair and seismically upgrade” damaged facilities at the landmark Eastside medical complex or to provide new medical facilities at another site in the same general vicinity.

After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, four critical care structures at County-USC suffered heavy damage. The quake forced closure of the pediatrics pavilion and psychiatric hospital, as well as Women’s and part of General Hospital.

Ever since, the county and the federal agency have been at odds over the scope of earthquake damage and the amount that the county should receive to rebuild the linchpin of the local emergency and trauma network.

Rather than continuing to battle over the county’s damage claims, Reed said FEMA has proposed giving the county money to upgrade the hospital from a fund designed to eliminate seismic hazards in hospitals that are crucial during disasters. This is a “preferred alternative to the lengthy and potentially troublesome routine [disaster damage claim] process,” Reed said.

The agreement represents a substantial increase over FEMA’s October offer to provide $300 million to assist the county in repairing or replacing County-USC, which opened in 1932.

It also caps the best week in years for the county’s beleaguered health system, which suffered major budget cuts last fall as a result of the worst fiscal crisis in the county’s history. More than 2,500 health workers, including doctors and nurses, were laid off because of the budget crisis, and outpatient services in specialty clinics were sharply curtailed.

On Monday, Supervisors Gloria Molina, Zev Yaroslavksy and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke received assurances in a White House meeting that President Clinton soon will deliver his promised $364-million bailout of the health system.

With the county’s credit rating on the decline, the supervisors were told late last year that the county could not afford to rebuild the busy hospital, even though they had embarked on an ambitious $1.2-billion replacement project.

The supervisors put the project on hold last fall after they were told by a consultant that the proposed 946-bed hospital was too big and that the building needed to be dramatically scaled back to 788 beds or fewer.

The agreement was reached as a result of private meetings between Molina and top Clinton administration officials, including Vice President Al Gore and FEMA Director James Lee Witt. Molina pressed for a quick resolution of the earthquake-damage claims for the hospital, which towers over Boyle Heights in her district.

“The offer that FEMA made is very significant,” said Michael Bustamante, Molina’s spokesman. The agreement provides that the money “can be used for an existing building or the construction of a new building, on or off the original site” as long as the new structure contains the same basic functions and serves the same population.