Last week I made a controversial statement about Piqua’s football facility named Alexander Stadium/Purk Field and how I considered signage displays in recognition of Premier Health Partners, including Good Samaritan and UVMC (Upper Valley Medical Center) as undermining OUR stadium’s “ownership identity” through a NAMING RIGHTS campaign. As a result of that post and a subsequent article some people exhibited the light bulb experience in their comments, many remained indifferent, and a few were agitated or negative. But there was one person who said she was totally baffled about her understanding or its relevancy of what I had written that she even questioned her own reasoning skills. Because of that one I have now decided to risk offending the 99 so to speak, so as to help her find her way. We the people, of the Piqua community entered into a mutual agreement spurred by the challenge of raising over a million dollars and a very generous matching donation given freely by Cliff Alexander. WE BUILT THAT STADIUM. Later the Piqua Board of Education surrendered our “ownership identity” to the Premier Health Partners. Premier Health Partners is a non-profit corporation. Non-profit corporations don’t pay property taxes. You and I do. Our property taxes are a primary source of revenues that are used in financing our public schools. If our properties decline in value as occurred after the 2008 financial crisis then schools have less money and have to ask for new levies or make cuts affecting student learning. Premier Health Partners in spite of earning huge profits in the Dayton area and Miami Valley, our public policy allows them to remain tax exempt. Because of medical services beneficial to the community they are deemed to provide a “community benefit” under providing care and treatment to the indigent and underinsured among us. But it seems that here again the public undergirds that charitable benefit in the way of paying higher health care costs and premiums. As a further maneuver to avoid taxes non-profit hospitals MUST show and document a “community benefit” and this, then allows them to become supporters of schools and capitalize on a publicity campaign targeting the schools community football stadiums by tying them to “the promotion of health” . The more they utilized this tactic the more they are able to justify their tax exempt status with the IRS and the more we praise them for taking our money and then using it to help the schools and underwrite social programs that significantly impact the mission of social agencies. You may not choose to do anything about this situation but at least you should be better informed of the consequences of inaction and the Piqua Board of Education would better serve the community by educating our students and residents of the evolving and long term commitments under its NAMING RIGHTS agreements. https://youtube/watch?v=E7fQx3rOIMk
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 17:40:30 +0000
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