A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2022
IN BRIEF
Seaside band teacher killed in crash
on Highway 26
A Seaside band teacher was one of two men killed
on Saturday after a crash on U.S. Highway 26 near the
Saddle Mountain State Park Road intersection.
Police said Fredrick Scheffl er II, a 49-year-old
Portland resident, was driving westbound in a black
2020 Tesla Model Y just before noon, veered into the
oncoming lane and struck a gray Hyundai Tucson
driven by Kyle Rieger, 26, who lived in Warrenton.
Scheffl er sustained fatal injuries and was pro-
nounced dead at the scene.
Rieger, who taught at Seaside High School and
Seaside Middle School, was taken to Providence Sea-
side Hospital after the crash and later fl own to Ore-
gon Health & Science University Hospital, according
to Seaside High School principal Jeff Roberts.
“Despite heroic eff orts from the medical team at
OHSU, the injuries sustained by Mr. Rieger were too
much to overcome and I am sorry to have to share that
he passed away,” Roberts said in a letter to students
and families.
Rieger held a bachelor’s degree in music composi-
tion and a master’s degree in instrumental conducting
from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri.
He joined the Seaside School District in September.
“Although Kyle was here for a short time, he had
already had a great impact on students and colleagues
alike and had a bright future ahead of him,” Roberts said.
The crash partially closed the highway for more
than three hours.
F-15 fl yover marked
Memorial Day in Astoria
F-15 Eagle fi ghter jets conducted a fl yover over
Astoria on Monday to help mark Memorial Day.
The jets passed by just after 11 a.m.
“F-15 fl yovers from the 142nd Wing and your
hometown Air Force are a way for us to pay tribute
to American patriots who paid the ultimate sacrifi ce
and their families,” Col. Todd Hoff ord, commander of
the 142nd Wing of the Portland Air National Guard,
said in a statement. “The fl ights are also a public salute
to our local communities whom we appreciate and
respect, for their support of our airmen and all those
serving throughout our nation.
“It is an honor to protect and defend the Pacifi c
Northwest and the freedoms which allow us to spend
time with our loved ones on this national holiday.”
CEDR recognizes businesses with awards
Clatsop
Economic
BUSINESS LEADER
OF THE YEAR
Development Resources
• New Business/
recognized
standout
Gaetano’s Market & Deli
• North County/
North Coast businesses
Holly McHone Jewelers
— large and small — for
• South County/Brian Olson,
Beachcomber Vacation Homes
their community contri-
• Business Achievement/
butions in the past year
Montealban Mexican Restaurant
during an awards cer-
SMALL BUSINESSES
• Economic Impact/
emony on Thursday at
Kiosco Mexicano
Clatsop Community Col-
• Customer Service/Lucy’s Books
• Innovation/Encore Dance Studio
lege’s Patriot Hall.
Kevin Leahy, the exec-
LARGE BUSINESSES
• Community Impact/
utive director of CEDR
Mo’s Restaurant
and the Clatsop Commu-
• Economic Impact/Columbia Bank
• Innovation/J.M. Browning Logging Inc.
nity College Small Busi-
• Customer Service/The Ocean Lodge
ness Development Cen-
This
year, CEDR added the Skip
ter, said he was happy
Hauke Spirit of Business Commu-
to see this year’s event
nity Supporter award, to honor the
late CEDR co-founder. Margo Lalich
bring together a variety of
received the award for her work
businesses.
as Clatsop County’s interim public
health director during the pandemic.
“I would say that’s
kind of our secret sauce.
We’re not just relying on one thing, like tourism,” he said.
“We have so much going on here with natural resources,
and hospitality, and retail and health care, that’s what
really makes things special here.”
— The Astorian
DEATH
May 28, 2022
In WALKER,
Brief
James Leigh, 83, of Astoria, died in
Astoria. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary of Astoria
is in charge of the arrangements.
Death
MEMORIALS
Saturday, June 4
Memorials
ABRAHAMSON,
Craig Fager — Celebra-
tion of life at 1 p.m., Asto-
ria Elks Lodge, 453 11th St.
BERRY, Diane A.
— Celebration of life at
1 p.m., Warrenton Com-
munity Center. 170 S.W.
Third St. in Warrenton.
TUESDAY
Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., special meeting, City
Hall, 163 E. Gower Ave.
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 10 a.m., work
session, (electronic meeting).
Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
(USPS 035-000)
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and Saturday by EO Media Group,
949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
97103 Telephone 503-325-3211,
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
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DailyAstorian.com
By APRIL EHRLICH
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon health offi cials
announced Friday how they
will spend more than half-a-
billion dollars set aside for
behavioral health services in
the state.
The $517 million spend-
ing package is divided into
three main areas. About $132
million will pay for grants to
help behavioral health pro-
viders with staffi ng shortages.
Another $155 million will
pay for rate increases for ser-
vice providers. The remaining
$230 million will go toward
supportive housing and resi-
dential treatment programs.
The ambitious spending
package is the result of leg-
islative initiatives to help the
state improve its behavioral
health services. Oregon has
the fi fth-highest unmet need
for mental health services,
according to federal data,
with more than 10% of adults
saying they can’t get the help
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, Clatsop County’s mental
health and substance abuse treatment provider, has sought
to help with housing.
they need.
One of the biggest chal-
lenges Oregon faces is a
shortage of mental health
workers, according to a Feb-
ruary report by the Oregon
Health Authority — a prob-
lem that was exacerbated by
the pandemic.
That’s why lawmakers
this year allocated $132 mil-
lion toward grants for pro-
viders to bolster staffi ng. The
program, slated to begin this
week, will provide grants to
159 organizations to hire and
retain employees. Most of the
money will go toward wages,
benefi ts and bonuses.
Meanwhile, the $155
million for provider rate
increases will put an extra
$109 per Medicaid member
into the behavioral health sys-
tem. That program is slated
to begin July 1, although it
awaits fi nal legislative and
federal approval.
The money for support-
ive housing services includes
$100 million in direct awards
to counties, then $112 million
toward a competitive grant
program for residential men-
tal health and substance use
services.
The grant program will
support long-term projects,
including new construction
and renovation for support-
ive housing programs. The
remaining funds will go to
federally recognized tribes to
fund housing and residential
treatment projects.
“This will ensure that peo-
ple are supported in settings
that best meet their needs and
will create more equitable
and eff ective housing alterna-
tives for people with serious
and persistent mental illness,
requiring a higher standard
of care,” the Oregon Health
Authority said in a statement .
Many Oregon hospitals owe federal
government for early pandemic loans
By AMELIA
TEMPLETON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
This spring, hospitals and
health systems in the North-
west are reporting some
of their biggest fi nancial
losses since the COVID-19
pandemic started. In some
cases, the need to pay back
loans granted by the federal
government early in the pan-
demic is contributing to their
fi scal woes.
Providence Health &
Services, based in Renton,
Washington, lost $510 mil-
lion in the fi rst quarter of
2022. Oregon Health & Sci-
ence University Hospital,
based in Portland, has lost
$64 million in the current
fi scal year, including a $20
million loss in the month of
February alone.
And the St. Charles
Health System, in Bend,
lost $21.8 million and
announced layoff s.
All three health systems
have cited the impact of the
omicron wave, infl ation and
the health care labor crisis as
reasons for losing money on
their operations.
Most hospitals have
drawn on pandemic aid dol-
lars, from the CARES Act
and other sources, to par-
tially off set those losses.
But a lesser known aid
program, the Medicare
Accelerated and Advance
Payments program, off ered
short-term
interest-free
loans, not grants. And now,
the bills are coming due at
a time when hospitals’ costs
are rising quickly and reve-
nue from patient stays and
surgeries is growing more
slowly.
Bruce Forster
Oregon Health & Science University Hospital is one of several
Oregon hospitals facing fi nancial losses as COVID-19 care has
strained resources the past two years.
At the outset of the pan-
demic two years ago, Ore-
gon hospitals and primary
care providers received more
than $1.1 billion in advance
payments from Medicare,
according to records shared
by the Oregon Association
of Hospitals and Health Sys-
tems. The idea was to keep
the cash fl owing in the early
crisis months of the pan-
demic, when elective sur-
geries were canceled, by
paying hospitals in advance
for services they would pro-
vide to Medicare patients in
the future.
The program has been
used in the past to support
hospitals impacted by wild-
fi res and hurricanes. The
idea is that hospitals are able
to pay back the advances
once the crisis has passed
and operations have returned
to normal. But the pandemic
has dragged on — and hos-
pitals and health systems are
still dealing with the eff ects.
At the same time, the federal
government wants to get its
money back so it can keep
Medicare funded.
Based on the number of
Medicare patients they treat,
PeaceHealth, headquartered
in Vancouver, Washington ,
OHSU and the St. Charles
Health System got the big-
gest advances of the systems
in Oregon that took loans:
$214 million, $137 million,
and $94 million .
Congress set the repay-
ment timeline and has
extended it once already.
Hospitals have lobbied,
unsuccessfully, for the loans
to be forgiven.
In March 2021, a year
after the fi rst payments
went out, the U.S. Depart-
ment of Health and Human
Services, which oversees
Medicare, began recovering
those cash advances by pay-
ing health systems 25% less
for Medicare reimbursement
claims. Earlier this year, fol-
lowing the schedule set by
Congress, they began pay-
ing just 50% of the bill for
any service the hospital pro-
vided to a patient covered by
Medicare.
Hospitals can also opt to
repay Medicare for the loans
directly to avoid having their
reimbursements reduced.
The Lake Health Dis-
trict, in remote Lake County,
received about $5.2 million
in grants from the Provider
Relief Fund, and a $7 mil-
lion loan from the Acceler-
ated and Advance Payments
program, which it is now
paying back.
CEO Charlie Tveit said
Lake Health District is
repaying Medicare even as
he is considering layoff s or
cuts to services, including a
long-term care facility and
small hospice program.
“We’re looking at that.
We can’t continue to lose
money like we have been,”
he said.
Tveit said the high cost of
hiring temporary employees
through an agency for crit-
ical positions Lake Health
has been unable to fi ll is the
primary driver of the losses.
Most hospital systems are
short on nurses and have
been paying high wages
for certifi ed nurses to travel
to their hospitals for short
stints. But, as Lake Health
and others have found, that
can get expensive quickly.
Lake Health District
didn’t spend the advanced
payments it received from
Medicare, since it seemed
likely the loan would need
to be repaid. Still, Tveit said
it’s frustrating to be return-
ing federal aid — partic-
ularly when he can’t pre-
dict how COVID-19 might
impact his future operations.
“We have no idea what’s
going to happen this fall,”
Tveit said. “It might come
back with a vengeance.”
Entomologists mull offi cial name for ‘murder hornets’
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Established July 1, 1873
Mental health services to get over
$500M spending boost this year
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CIRCULATIONS, INC.
Printed on
recycled paper
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Asian giant hornets,
popularly called “murder
hornets,” should be com-
monly known as “northern
giant hornets,” according
to the Entomological Soci-
ety of America’s commit-
tee on naming insects.
Washington
State
Department of Agriculture
entomologist Chris Loo-
ney proposed the name.
The recommendation by
the names committee must
still be approved by the
society’s governing board.
The society’s “Better
Common Names Project”
has been targeting what
the society calls “problem-
atic names (that) perpet-
Asian giant hornets have
been found in Washington
state and British Columbia.
uate harm against people
of various ethnicities and
races.”
Last year, the society
renamed the “gypsy moth”
to “spongy moth,” the fi rst
name change approved by
the governing board.
Looney said last week
that he wanted to keep
the public from confusing
Asian giant hornets with
a diff erent species com-
monly known in Europe as
“Asian hornets,” another
large and destructive pest.
“That was my main
motivation,” he said.
Asian giant hornets, sci-
entifi cally known as Vespa
mandarinia, have been
found in Washington state
and British Columbia.
Asian hornets, Vespa
veluntina, are spread-
ing in Europe, but have
never been documented in
North America. The simi-
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lar names, however, have
already apparently caused
a mix-up.
A Washington state res-
ident in 2020 reported an
Asian giant hornet sighting
to a United Kingdom agen-
cy’s website. The misdi-
rected report delayed fi nd-
ing an Asian giant nest in
Whatcom County, the agri-
culture department said.
The confusion spans
the Atlantic. Residents of
Switzerland, Spain and the
UK have contacted Looney
to report sightings of Asian
hornets.
Cindy Hawkins
503-440-0130
HERON REALTY