NATCHEZ &045; The administrator at Field Memorial Community Hospital in Centreville sympathizes with both sides in a Natchez Regional Medical Center effort to withdraw from the state retirement system.

Brock Slabach, administrator at Field since January 1989, said the Public Employee Retirement System indeed is an expensive system. &uot;It’s a rich retirement program,&uot; he said. &uot;We’ve participated for quite some time.&uot;

Field Memorial has not looked at withdrawing from PERS as an option, he said.

Hospitals face many difficult choices today, Slabach said. &uot;But I totally understand the sensitivity people have over their retirement programs. I understand completely the point of view of the employee.&uot;

The Centreville hospital, like Natchez Regional, is one of only 14 public county hospitals in the state to remain in the system out of a total of 48.

The Natchez Regional Board of Trustees signed a resolution on Jan. 10 asking for legislation to give the Natchez hospital an option to withdraw from the system as a way to save money.

Participating employees contribute 7.25 percent of a paycheck to the system, with the hospital paying 9.75 percent. The hospital’s match will rise to 10.75 in July and perhaps to 11.75 in 2006. The hospital now pays about $1.5 to PERS annually.

Adams County supervisors, after meeting with the hospital board last week, requested legislators

amend the bill to allow hospital employees vested in PERS to be grandfathered into the system.

Rep. Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, said he had concerns about the bill from the beginning. &uot;There are no guarantees, no way to protect what is vested in that system.&uot;

Still, adding the amendment likely will end chances that the bill will be passed, said Sen. Robert Dearing, D-Natchez.

&uot;I ran that scenario by Mr. Frank Ready, executive director of the retirement system,&uot; Dearing said. &uot;He said he’d be opposed to that amendment.&uot;

Hospital board attorney Walter Brown said as much last week, when he learned of the supervisors’ amendment.

&uot;Administratively, PERS would not like to figure out who’s on or off,&uot; Brown said. &uot;If you complicate it or confuse it with two different signals from two different boards, they’re not going to do this.&uot;

Dearing said he has heard from a number of hospital employees who have different concerns about the hospital board’s move.

&uot;The biggest impact would be that they would not be in a retirement system as good as PERS,&uot; Dearing said. &uot;Some of the employees are worried that state retirement is one of the good recruiting tools the hospital has. It’s one of the

incentives to get good employees, one of the few advantages they have.&uot;

Still, he understands the hospital board’s predicament. &uot;In defense of the board of trustees, it does cost the hospital a lot of money to match the employees’ contributions.&uot;

Slabach, the Field Memorial administrator, said public hospitals have faced many problems in recent years. &uot;It’s all about trade-offs and choices,&uot; he said. &uot;The margins are getting thinner. That’s the way this business is going.&uot;