If you're in the hospital, you would like to think that the head honcho for your malady, the chief of staff, is near by. Well, he or she is not, instead they're above the arena entrance, in Reilly's portion of the building. Floors 6 through 9 of the PPL Center is the official address for the LVHN administrators, and chiefs of staff. This maneuver allows J.B. Reilly to harvest the state income taxes from the highest paid employees of the hospital. Although this is a ruse to funnel even more money Reilly's way, I only hope that these doctors do in fact spend their time at the hospital, and not above the arena.
The owners of the PPL Plaza office building, now occupied by Talen Energy, have filed a federal lawsuit. They claim that the NIZ makes the playing field so uneven, that the NIZ is unconstitutional. Although I'll defer opinion on the constitutionality issue, it certainly can spawn corruption. It appears that the NIZ is so lucrative, that it can even subvert the integrity of a large tax-free, such as LVHN.
Pennsylvania is not beyond misconduct. Although, I have exposed many shenanigans on this blog, today's revelation even surprised a jaded blogger like myself.
reprinted from December of 2015
ADDENDUM NOVEMBER 27, 2018: In 2015, after I verified that the offices existed, I was confronted by private security and directed to leave the building. Over the years I have broken several stories, in the condensed style as above, that the Morning Call went on to publish without attribution. However, this is one story they chose NOT to use, with or without attribution.
"LVHN Doctors to Reilly's Wallet" only covers the first part of this elaborate money-laundering scam.
ReplyDeleteA portion of the money that the LVHN doctors are funneling to Reilly's debt service then gets kicked back to the hospital in the form of a charitable contribution, which is of course deducted by Reilly when he pays his FEDERAL taxes.
This arrangement is much easier for the already tax-exempt LVHN than trying to peel grant money away from a cash-strapped federal or state government. Why go through all that time and effort when this arrangement is much faster?
And who is funding all of this? The taxpayers - you and me - of course.
Eventually Reilly will sell that which we have paid for, but we won't be seeing a dime of profit on the transaction that we funded.
unknown@6:49, while the arrangement of which you write may well be the reality, i still credit reilly's contribution to the hospital as philanthropic. however, i always felt the hospital facilities at the arena were contrived. why would anybody want to go to 7th and hamilton and deal with parking for physical therapy?
ReplyDeleteTo answer your last question, my kiddo did a lot of PT at the facility on Hamilton. (This was in 2015.) The parking is directly underneath the facility, and it's super easy to take an elevator up to the PT floor. Patients never need to be exposed to weather or venture onto Hamilton at all. It's actually easier to get to the PT floor there than it is at many other PT facilities in the area. If I recall correctly, parking was validated, so we didn't pay the garage fee, either. We chose to go there because the appointments were much easier to get. (It was pretty quiet up on that floor at the time. My daughter was often the only patient.)
ReplyDelete(FYI - I learned the hard way that Good Shepherd is where you want to go if you need PT or OT or any other type of rehab therapy. Don't mess around - go to the Good Shepherd Main Campus. The surrounding neighborhood isn't much, but the campus itself is very nice and the expertise is world class.)