Sarasota County, Florida Notes to Financial Statements September 30, 2024 Note 13. CONTINGENCIES Federal, State and Local Grants Grant monies received and disbursed by the County are for specific purposes and are subject to review by the grantor agencies. Such audits may result in requests for reimbursement due to disallowed expenditures. Based upon prior experience, the County does not believe that such disallowances, if any, would have a material effect on the financial position of the County. Litigation On February 25, 2011, Sarasota Doctors Hospital, Inc. and Englewood Community Hospital, Inc. and Venice HMA, LLC d/b/a Venice Regional Medical Center (collectively, the “Plaintiffs”) filed declaratory actions against the County and the Sarasota County Public Hospital District seeking reimbursement for health care services provided to indigents patients. Invoices, which have been presented to the County and have not been paid by the County, are estimated to be approximately $887,496,801 as of September 30, 2024. The invoices are based on a 2003 reenactment of a 1959 special act (the “Special Act”) unique to the County that, to this date, has never previously been used to support claims of this nature. The County challenged the lawfulness of the Special Act on several bases that resulted in the case being addressed in advance of trial by the Second District Court of Appeals and the Florida Supreme Court. Neither the ruling by the Florida Supreme Court nor the ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal required the County to reimburse the private hospitals for indigent medical care. The matter proceeded to trial in June 2022 concluding with a Final Judgment in favor of the County on November 10, 2022, ruling that the Special Act did not waive the County’s sovereign immunity and accordingly did not create an obligation compelling the County to pay Plaintiff’s claims for reimbursement for the costs of health care services provided to medically indigent patients. The Court also found that the Plaintiffs failed to comply with the provisions of the Special Act to seek reimbursement thereunder. The Plaintiffs have filed their respective notices of appeal to the Second District Court of Appeals. Additionally, the County is a defendant in various lawsuits in the normal course of business. To the extent, the outcome of such litigation has been determined to result in probable loss to the County; such loss has been accrued in the accompanying financial statements. Litigation where loss to the County is reasonably possible has not been accrued; however, a reserve for general liability claims has been established in the risk management fund - see Note 9 for additional information. Although the outcome of the remaining claims is not presently determinable, it is the opinion of the County’s General Counsel that resolution of these matters will not have a material adverse effect on the financial condition of the County. NOTE 14. SUBSEQUENT EVENTS On October 9, 2024, Hurricane Milton made landfall on Siesta Key in Sarasota County, Florida, as a Category 3 hurricane. As expected, due to the winds, rain and local area flooding, short-term electric service and other outages were experienced and remedied. The County had sufficient disaster recovery and cleanup reserves to manage such costs without significant impact to its budget and plans to recoup a majority of its costs through outside sources. Separate from the County’s reimbursements, the County is a direct recipient of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR). This funding is being used for unmet needs assistance to the community from the impacts of storms Debby, Helene and Milton. On November 11, 2024, the County issued a Florida Local Government Finance Commission Pooled Commercial Paper Revenue Note, Draw A-35-1, in the principal amount of $3,033,000, to finance the construction of a fire station and the acquisition of a fire station alerting system 157
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzM3Mjg=