By John Dorschner
The Charter Review Task Force has rejected a proposal to create a new governing board for Jackson Health System, but Marcos Lapciuc, Jackson’s board chairman, is continuing to push for a revised governing structure to replace the present Financial Recovery Board, which is scheduled to sunset next spring.If nothing is done, Jackson will go back to its old board structure, the 17-member Public Health Trust board that existed for years before Commissioner Joe Martinez pushed through an emergency board in the spring of 2011.Lapciuc last week wrote to the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners that he favors the retention of a seven-member board, as the FRB is now, but proposes changes so that the board would nominate its own replacements, which then would be approved by the commission.
Lapciuc also wants the new board to have more operating independence so that commissioners would be less involved in the basic workings of Jackson.
SEIU Local 1991, which represents nurses and other healthcare professionals at Jackson, has consistently maintained that commissioners need to have a major involvement in Jackson, which is owned and funded by the county’s taxpayers.