PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center plans to ask voters to hike their property taxes by 33 cents per $1,000 to produce an additional $2.5 million a year for the hospital and its medical network.
OMC commissioners expect to approve the plan at their regular meeting next Wednesday.
If approved by voters, the tax increase would be permanent.
The measure would appear on the Aug. 19 primary election ballot that would go to voters in the hospital district, from Lake Crescent east to the Clallam County line.
Hospital CEO Eric Lewis unveiled the plan Wednesday night at a special board of commissioners meeting at OMC.
He said it was part of an eight-part strategy that includes cutting costs, increasing patient volume and seeking grants and donations.
The aim, he said, is to insure local control of OMC by raising revenues to where it can keep pace with medical technology and can attract good doctors and staff.
That translates into an operating margin — the “profit” for a nonprofit organization — of 3 percent to 5 percent.
It hasn’t been within that range since 2004, at the outset of an ambitious building and improvement plan.
In 2007, the margin slumped to a negative 0.7 percent, in the red by $700,000.
