Waterville hospital plans 16 layoffs, budget cuts

WATERVILLE — Layoffs at Mid-Maine Medical Center will include the elimination of 16 staff jobs, the reduction of hours for nine more and budget cuts of nearly $1 million, hospital officials said.

Financial losses during the past year have forced the cutbacks, which become effective June 1, said hospital president William P. Spolyar.

Spolyar said the cutbacks would not affect the medical center’s clinical care units. Most of the jobs to be eliminated are non-clinical and midmanagement positions, he said.

“We are also eliminating another 12 positions which are in the current budget, but are not filled at this time,” Spolyar said.

A fiscal 1990 audit will not be completed until later this month. The facility’s losses are its first in six years and could total $500,000, Spolyar said.

The cutbacks were necessitated by the decline in patient admissions during the past year and steep increases in bad debt and charity care write-offs, hospital officials said.

The medical center’s annual operating budget for the fiscal year that ended March 31 was just over $54 million.

After the cutbacks take effect, the facility’s work force will total 1,373 people, Spolyar said.