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The Salem Board of Aldermen held their regular meeting at the City Hall Council Chambers Tuesday night. The board approved the consent agenda, which showed sales tax totaling $87,672.66 for January. This is up $6,829 over last year. In the Hearing of Persons, the Current River Car Cruisers Car Club requested that the streets around the Court House be closed for their annual Car Show on June 14^th, and Fred Whitaker requested that Fourth Street, between the Bank of Salem and Red Barn, be closed for a Music Show, from 1:00 to 10:00 P.M. on May 31^st. Both requests were approved. In Unfinished Business, the submitted bids for the clean-up of 817 E. Gibbs Street was postponed until the March meeting to allow for the 30-day period from the February 5^th hearing to expire before a bid can be approved. Prior to the alderman meeting, a Planning and Zoning Public Hearing was held.  The Planning and Zoning Committee recommended adding a Conditional Use Permit for Counseling or Professional Services to the City Code Book. The Board of Aldermen approved this. Interim City Administrator, Ray Walden, reported that bids would be accepted for a recycling trailer to be paid from the recycling grant, and bids for the airport runway resealing will soon be out. Walden stated that the City Code Book would soon be available online.  Mayor Gary Brown reported the Road Rally would be held downtown this weekend. Pace Construction Company was recently awarded a contract for $758,000 for the Route J improvements and they will subcontract the work to another company. This subcontractor will bid on the water line project that the city has upcoming. He wanted to remind the public that tree limbs need to be four feet or less and bundled to be picked up by the city. Brown suggested and the board approved moving the next meeting to Thursday, March 7^th at 6:00 PM. Brown appointed and the aldermen approved Ray Walden to serve as Building Commissioner. Former City Administrator Clayton Lucas previously held this position. Mayor Brown presented a list of names for the streets in the Cedar Grove Cemetery to the aldermen. The street names were approved. The meeting was then adjourned. 

The Salem Memorial District Hospital Board of Directors held their monthly meeting Tuesday evening in the hospital library. After approval of the agenda and minutes from the January 21st meeting, the summary of operations for the month of January showed emergency room visits and outpatient registrations were above the budgeted projections and that helped create a gain from operations of $34,127 and an excess of revenues of $393,763. There was a cash increase of $538,361 for the month of January.  Days in account receivables went from 43 to 45, which was due to some issues as well as slow payments from Medicare. Days of cash on hand increased from 58 to 73 in January. Director of Nursing Carol Lacy reported that there were 69 acute care admissions, which averaged out to 9.2 patients per day, with an average of 10.5 acute care hours per patient per day. Lacy reported that there were 793 emergency room visits with an average turnaround time of 130 minutes. Also during the month, there were 186 ambulance runs with 185 patients being assessed. In January, there were 28 surgery cases, 1,801 outpatient registrations, 137 home health visits, 9,751 lab tests, 991 radiology procedures, 160 CT scans, 22 MRI scans, 11 nuclear med scans, 2,171 cardiopulmonary procedures, 486 rehab treatments, 204 dialysis treatments, and 299 clinic visits. Lacy also reported that confirmed cases of influenza year-to-date stand at 132 as of February 9th. Hospital Administrator Dennis Pryor reported the SMDH Auxiliary once again had to cancel their monthly meeting, due to the weather. In Legislative updates, Pryor stated that Congress passed a new budget with a 2% reduction still in place. In new business, the Board approved the budgeted purchase for Information Systems for 28 licenses for a upgrade on existing systems from Windows XP to Windows 7 from ABS for $4,199. The Board then approved the non-budgeted purchase for the Pharmacy of Remote Order Entry Services, from Cardinal Health for $43,136 for the first year, which included a $7,000 interface from Capital expenditures and then an annual cost of $36,136 a year. This is necessary to meet CMS requirements for medication verification prior to administration. This service is for inpatient only, when the regular on duty Pharmacist is off duty such as nighttime and weekend hours, that any medication given is verified prior to the administration of the medicine. The Board also approved the non-budgeted purchase for Information Systems for new TruBridge (CPSI) modules for Insurance Verification for $4,250 for one year with a monthly fee of $500 for 1,500 transactions. This is an instant insurance card verification process. The Budget Committee will be meeting in a few weeks to begin work on the 2015 budget as May 1st is the goal set for the budget to be ready. The Board then voted to go into closed session.  

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