Close Camarillo Health District, Grand Jury Urges

A special health care district founded in Camarillo 30 years ago should be dissolved, because it duplicates existing services and collects about $1 million in property taxes each year, the county grand jury suggested Thursday.

In a 10-page report, the panel recommends a special study and audit of the Camarillo Health Care District to determine whether its services to the county’s fifth-largest city merit the $35 annual assessment paid by each household in Camarillo and a portion of the unincorporated areas nearby.

While the district offers a variety of health screenings, it operates no medical clinics or ambulance service and employs only one full-time medical professional--a registered nurse, the report said.

Also, the services the district does provide are already offered by the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District, according to the report.

“Camarillo’s need for a ‘safety net’ of low cost medical and mental health services for all ages is not met by the Camarillo Health Care District or the County,” the report states. “The [district] has outgrown its original mission of health care for the senior population of the local area . . . and its present mission statement is ambiguous.”

Founded in 1969 as the Pleasant Valley Health Care District, the agency originally maintained an acute care hospital in Camarillo. The hospital was sold in 1983 and the district’s mission was then changed to provide health care to seniors in the area, according to the grand jury’s findings.

Health district officials issued an exhaustive response Thursday to the panel’s finding, outlining dozens of points in the report considered to be errors--including what the officials said were inflated budget estimates and a misinterpretation of the district’s mission.

Health officials mentioned an earlier Ventura County Grand Jury report, issued during 1997-98, that determined the district was well-organized and efficient and a 1998-99 audit conducted by the Oxnard accounting firm Soares, Sandall, Bernacchi & Petrovich.

“The prior study was conducted over several months, while for this report, [jurors] came for about three hours and that was it,” district spokeswoman Kara Partridge said. “There’s a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of this grand jury.”

While the latest report concludes the district doesn’t focus its services on seniors, as stated in its goals, district officials say the mission “has never been demographically limited to a senior population.”

The report states the few medical services offered by the district, such as immunizations, tuberculosis testing and cancer screening, are either funded by other health care agencies or are also offered at the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District.

But health district officials contend the district, in addition to screenings, transports residents to medical appointments for a small fee, offers counseling, support groups, adult day-care services and dozens of workshops on health care issues.

In 1997, taxpayers’ advocate Jere Robings urged the Camarillo City Council to shut down the district, because he believed the $1 million in annual tax revenues could be better spent elsewhere in the county.

But the council chose instead to follow guidance from 1997-98 grand jury findings.

Like the 73 other health care districts in the state, the Camarillo district is granted a portion of the area’s property tax with the understanding that it provide low-cost medical and mental health care services, according to the report.

But district officials instead use the property tax revenues to purchase real estate, rather than funding additional health care services, the report maintains.

Recently, the Camarillo Health Care District assured itself additional tax revenue by annexing the planned Cal State University Channel Islands site and is preparing to annex a portion of the Santa Rosa Valley and Sterling Hills development, according to the grand jury report.

Camarillo’s 60,000 residents are the only population in the county without county-sponsored health facilities, the report states.