Daily Archives: 10/06/2015
Baptist Easley recognized for preventing readmissions
EASLEY — Over the past three years, Baptist Easley has significantly reduced readmissions for Medicare patients treated for heart failure and pneumonia. The hospital had a 20 percent reduction in readmissions for these diagnoses from 2014-2015. This achievement was recognized in Columbia during a statewide meeting attended by more than 300 health care professionals.
Baptist Easley worked with other medical and community organizations to keep patients living with chronic diseases at home through a collaborative program called Preventing Avoidable Readmissions Together (PART). PART provides educational resources for providers across the state, along with opportunities to share experiences, innovations and best practices.
PART was established in September 2012 by the South Carolina Hospital Association, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Health Sciences South Carolina and the state›s Medicare quality organization, The Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence.
Since joining the PART collaboration in 2012, Baptist Easley has launched several initiatives to improve transition of care for patients and to reduce avoidable readmissions. Initiatives included developing a care transitions community with the hospitals and many local home health agencies and skilled nursing facilities and also a clinically-focused follow-up telephone call program targeting identified high risk patients. Currently patients who qualify will now receive in-home visits and coordination with their primary care provider and community providers as well.
“By using this team approach, we hope to reduce barriers and ensure that our patients receive the care necessary for them to remain in their home setting or outpatient environment,” said George Helmrich, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Baptist Easley.
“Partnering together and connecting into the larger community is an innovative and effective approach that has proven successful. The PART program plays an important role in our overall goal to provide safe, high quality care for every patient,” commented Lorri Gibbons, RN, vice president for quality and patient safety at the South Carolina Hospital Association.
5,031 avoidable readmissions statewide have been prevented since the program began.
Carmel Presbyterian set to host annual homecoming
Church to celebrate 228 years of history
LIBERTY — Carmel Presbyterian Church of Liberty will celebrate 228 years of history at its annual Homecoming on Oct. 11.
The event will begin with morning worship starting at 11 a.m. and followed by a brief business meeting of the Carmel Memorial Society, which provides for the upkeep of the cemetery.
A covered-dish lunch will follow the meeting. The Rev. Dr. John LeHeup will be the speaker for the service.
The church is located four miles south of Easley off Highway 135. For more information, call 843-3199.
Courier named Chamber Member of the Month
The Pickens County Courier has been named the Greater Pickens Chamber of Commerce’s October Member of the Month. Chamber director Mike Parrott said the chamber board chose the Courier for the service it provides for the community, the people and the businesses of Pickens County. The Courier has the largest circulation and is the only locally owned and operated newspaper in Pickens County. Pictured, from left, are staff members Emily Wright, Iva Stratton, Rocky Nimmons, Pamela Dodson, Ben Robinson and Zack Mauldin. Located at 109 Garvin St. in Pickens, the Pickens County Courier is available at most grocery and convenient stores around Pickens County or by subscription by calling (864) 878-6391 or visiting yourpickenscounty.com
BHSPC annual retreat
The Behavioral Health Services of Pickens County Youth Board [cointent_lockedcontent]recently participated in its annual Leadership Training Retreat at Bonclarken Conference Center in Flat Rock, N.C. The retreat involved guest speakers Sam Wyche, Steve Grant, and David Haskins. The youth board also participated in educational classes about alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and prescription drugs. They also participated in other classes to further their leadership skills. The retreat is also used as a time of bonding among the members. The youth board consists of 20 high school students from the four high schools in Pickens County — Mason Barkley, Juan Burgess, Maddy Butler, Ashley Clark, Emma Ellenburg, James Gilstrap, Elizabeth Lyda and Dillon Peterman from Pickens, Julia Dandeneau, Kelley Horton and Makenzye Patterson from Easley, Britton Blackwell, Gracie Clardy, Emma Dover and Ivy Johnson from Liberty, and Skylar Grant, Mac Kerswell, D’Azia Mills, Heena Patel and Dilani Rajapakse from Daniel. For more information about youth board or how your teenager can get involved in taking a stand for substance abuse prevention, call Jessica Gibson, youth board coordinator at (864) 898-5800.
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Community prayer service scheduled
By Ben Robinson
Staff Reporter
brobinson@thepccourier.com
PICKENS — A community prayer service has been scheduled for later this month.
[cointent_lockedcontent]Marvin Short appeared before Pickens City Council Monday night on behalf of Pickens United in Prayer to announce plans for the service.
“There’s a group of us that’s been getting together the past few weeks, between law enforcement and several pastors of the community,” Short said. “We want to have the opportunity to bring missions together in prayer at Legacy Square the night of Oct. 20 at 6 p.m.
“The idea behind it is that this would be a non-denominational prayer celebrating the good things about Pickens, because there’s a lot of good things about Pickens. We want the opportunity to be there and be all seen together, praying for Pickens.”
Short said the service is planned to last around an hour and feature prayer and singing, closed with a benediction.
“What we want to show to the community is that our strongest element in our community is our churches,” Short said. “And we’re hoping that all of our churches in the community — not just in the city of Pickens — can come together and be present.
Short said the service is for all churches in the Pickens area, not just Pickens city limits.
“We have reached out to a lot of the churches in the community,” Short said. “We’re hoping to reach out to even more. We have sort of identified our area as the Highway 183 corridor, the Highway 133 corridor and the Highway 11 corridor — that’s the Pickens area to us. We would appreciate the support of Pickens and its council.”
Short wanted no confusion about the purpose of the service.
“We’re looking to pray together and let everybody know how much we love our community,” Short said. “And most importantly, how we depend on our Lord Jesus Christ and what we need to do in our community.”
Mayor David Owens said he has already signed the paperwork for the service to use Legacy Square.
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Duke Energy to set up Residential Neighborhood program in Pickens
By Ben Robinson
Staff Reporter
brobinson@thepccourier.com
PICKENS — Duke Energy program manager Sue Dinnsen appeared before Pickens City Council Monday night [cointent_lockedcontent]with details about the company’s “Residential Neighborhood” program, which benefits low-income homes.
“I am here to introduce a program we are very proud to be bringing to the city of Pickens,” Dinnsen told council members. “I met with the mayor and (city administator) Bruce Evilsizor.”
“The residential neighborhood program is an energy-efficient program Duke offers to its customers,” Dinnsen said. “The main focus is we’re looking for some low-income homes. The program will help to lower their energy bills. They’re going to do things like offer a free in-home energy assessment, and they’re also going to get an education.
“We’re going to try to teach them and leave them with some tips on how to save energy.”
Dinnsen said eligibility requirements are rather open.
“The eligibility for this program are areas that we define where at least 50 percent of the households are at or below 200 percent of the poverty level,” Dinnsen said “What that means is for a family of four, their annual income is below $48,000. These are families that really need the help.”
Once Dinnsen determines a family is eligible once, no further research will be done.
“Once I designate the area, everybody with the boundaries of the area can participate, even if they are above those financial groupings,” Dinnsen said. “We do the income-level check first, and then from then on we don’t check income.”
Pickens could be the second area in the county to participate in the program.
“This program began back in 2013 in the Carolinas,” Dinnsen said. “Since that time we have serviced over 14,000 customers. We’ve chosen Pickens as out next place to come. We’ve done a lot of homes in South Carolina. I’m currently working with my crew in Liberty, and they’re doing really well.”
The program includes tips on how people can save energy.
“We’ve wrapped electric water heaters,” Dinnsen said. “These are features that are going to help you save money. We will give them covers for window units. If they have a central HVAC system, we’ll supply them with a year’s worth of filters. We recommend you change out every 30 days”
Dinnsen acknowledged the program would require much preliminary work.
“In order to make a program like this work, it takes a lot of upfront effort,” Dinnsen said. “That’s why I’m here, to work with you guys as community leaders to get the word out. We look to you guys to help us build awareness and acceptance of this program. We know how hard it is for some people to let strangers into their homes to do this work.
“Our crews will be going door to door knocking, and that makes people feel uncomfortable. So we want to work with the local police departments and make sure everybody in town know we’re here with a legitimate program.”
The kickoff event will be held Oct. 27 at The Mill Church at 158 Woodrow St. in Pickens.
“I’d like to invite the mayor to come and any other member of council,” Dinnsen said. “It’s real important that we have people come show support.”
This is just the first section of Pickens Duke plans to offer this program. Dinnsen will be back in town in December to offer the other section of Pickens the program.
At the end of the program, everyone who participated will be eligible to win a $500 gift card.
SIREN TESTS PLANNED AROUND OCONEE NUCLEAR STATION
The public alert notification sirens around the Oconee Nuclear Station will be tested Wednesday, Oct. 14, at approximately 11:50 a.m.
The 65 sirens within 10 miles of the Oconee Nuclear Station will be tested for three-minutes to make sure each siren works properly. This full-cycle siren test is performed once each quarter in cooperation with emergency officials in Oconee and Pickens counties, who are responsible for sounding the sirens.
Hearing a siren does not mean to evacuate. In an emergency, sirens are sounded as a signal for residents to tune to a local radio or TV station that would carry an emergency alerting message. County officials use these stations to provide information to the public. If sirens are heard and residents are unsure if it is a test or an emergency, they should tune to their local radio or TV station.
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Cannon hospital set to offer flu vaccine
PICKENS — Cannon will offer public and pediatric flu shots at the Cannon Memorial Hospital outpatient lobby on Tuesday, Oct. 27, from 6-8 p.m.
Children ages 3-18 can be vaccinated only if a parent or guardian is present and signs a consent form. Flu shots are $25, flu mist is $40 and pneumonia shots are $75.
Cash, check, debit/credit cards and Medicare Part B will be accepted.
Using the boots in the closet
The rubber boots in the closet aren’t put to use too often. The last time I wore them was on Ocracoke Island the week after Hurricane Sandy. We’d gone by boat out to Portsmouth Island, south of Ocracoke, to 
collect shells dredged up by the hurricane from the bottom of the ocean. We needed the boots because the water closer to the beach was too shallow for the motor to be used and we all had to jump out and pull the boat ashore.
The boots will be in use this week, even though the torrential rain has finally come to an end. We have to go out into the woods and check the pasture fence.
There are lots of pines and other trees in close proximity to the fence line, and periodically after heavy rain and high wind some trees will come down, often atop the top strand of wire. It takes an entire day to cut up an entire pine tree and remove it from the fence, but it has to be done.
It’s also likely that since the ground is so soft some fence posts may not be completely upright, as the weight of the tree may bend them over.
If this event in the pasture on Fowler Farm was being covered by Jim Cantrell, he would say the fence has been compromised by the heavy rainfall.
Although we only have three horses now, and their brains are reported to be the size of a walnut, they clearly believe the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and will leave their comfy home to find out if this is true.
On the brighter, side it is possible they may not notice the fence has been breached, but you never really know.
So inevitably after a weather event, it’s necessary to do a complete fence surveillance.
Hence the boots.
You may wonder why the boots are necessary after the rain has stopped. Should you care to walk through the soft ground surrounding the hay barn, you would soon have the answer to this question.
It is not unknown to have the shoes sucked off your feet by the heavy gumbo around the barn.
If that happens and balance is lost, it is possible to fall flat on your back in the mud and remain there until a rescue operation can be mounted.
It is not my life’s ambition to list among my achievements that a tractor was used to pull me from a mud bog.
Granted, it would add to the collection of family farm history to be able to include such an incident, but it’s my belief there’s already a pretty complete collection of similar stories.
And so it’s a good thing there are rubber boots in the closet. It’s always better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.
Letters to the Editor 10-07-15
Saitta talks SDPC audit
Dear Editor
The school district’s 2015 financial audit is complete, and the district’s budget ended the year in surplus of $3.8 million. Unfortunately, $3.3 million of that surplus was spent on building maintenance and equipment. Staggering building costs continue to eat up the budget.
Savings increased $550,000 in 2014-15. It is safe to say the district has built about $4 to $5 million in savings. This is a far contrast to 2010 when the district was facing a $2.75 million deficit and had negative savings, having to borrow money to meet payroll late that year.
Total spending this past fiscal year was $193.4 million — that’s $11,690 per student.
The budget is still generating surpluses and building savings. This is due to five primary reasons:
1. Unlike surrounding school districts and in the face of opposition, our school board bit the bullet and made permanent reductions in spending in 2010 and 2011. As a result the budget deficit that year and for years to come was wiped out.
2. As the economy rebounded and new revenue started to flow-in in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the board limited annual spending growth, and surpluses and savings began to build.
3. A by-product of this fiscal austerity was it altered the culture by making employees more cost conscious. Looking at the details of the audit, actual spending for hundreds of items were below budgeted expenditures. The district leadership and employees have done a good job of keeping actual spending under budgeted spending the past few years.
4. The economy is now in the seventh year of its upswing, so revenue has been growing steadily for years now. The TIF lawsuit help boost revenue too.
5. While I didn’t agree with this, about 55 teaching positions have been eliminated the last two years, and that has created savings, too.
Combing through the 102-page audit, total debt of the district is $303.1 million. That is down from the peak of $382.5 million in 2007.
Under the stress of rising retirement costs, the contribution the district pays into the state pension has risen from 8.05 percent in 2007 to 10.75 percent in 2015. The pension system is woefully under-funded, so taxpayers as well as employees are having to pay more. The district’s portion of the liability is $142.7 million.
By the way, 31 percent of the state’s pension assets are now invested in the stock market. It has another 31 percent invested in even riskier assets like hedge funds, private equity and debt, as well as commodities. It is assuming a 7.5 percent annual return on its investments.
The financial condition of the district has improved significantly the past few years due to economic growth and improved budget management. Longer-term, the bond debt is still staggering, more than $300 million. The pension liability is probably $250 million given market returns are likely to fall short of 7.5 percent. The audit doesn’t mention the district’s long-term medical liability is, but it is undoubtedly high (probably north of $200 million) and going higher because ObamaCare continues to ratchet up medical costs.
Many state and local governments look the same way, better in the short-run, but buried in debt and having made too many promises they’ll never be able to afford in the long-run.
Alex Saitta
School board trustee
Pickens
A challenge on fire fee
Dear Editor,
I write this letter to the editor in hopes it will reach each person in Pickens County owning open land. Pickens County Council has applied a “fire fee” on all open land in the county. This will be found on your tax bill for 2015. This fee is applied to all plots; for example, if you own three plots of land 5.1 acres or more, you will pay $80 on each piece, coming to a $240 tax increase. Council passed this scale: 0.1 to 5 acres $20, 5.1 to 20 acres $80, 20.1 to 100 acres $160, 100.1 to 1,000 acres $240, and greater than 1,000 acres $320. So if you own one, acre you pay $20. If you own 1000.1 acres you pay $0.32 per acre, or $320. How can this scale be justified? The population of Pickens County is about 120,000 people in the 2014 census. If 50,000 people pay a one-acre fire fee of $20, this will bring in about $1 million, and of course this is only a small amount to what real income will be from this fee. County fire fees do not go to city fire departments. We now have 13 county fire stations, but more will be added in the future.
I ask you to contact county council members. The six members are listed below, along with their districts and phone numbers.
Ensley Feemster — District 1, Clemson, (864) 654-3862.
Trey Whitehurst — District 2, Six Mile, (864) 639-6035.
Randy Crenshaw — District 3, Pickens, (864) 868-2879.
Neil Smith — District 4, Liberty, (864) 878-6026.
Jennifer Willis — District 5, Easley, (864) 859-6096.
Tom Ponder — District 6, Dacusville, (864) 430-1386.
I challenge you to let your council know your view on the decision council has made. I also ask that each open land owner come to the county council meeting scheduled for Oct. 19 at 6:30 pm. Rules for speaking are that you must sign up before the meeting. Call (864) 898-5856. The location is the Pickens County administration building at 222 McDaniel Ave in Pickens.
Ruth Clark
Pickens
More on fire fee proposed by county
Dear Editor,
An in-depth news reporting of Pickens County Council’s decision to apply a fire fee charge on all unoccupied agricultural property is needed.
The fire fee charges now being added to the existing property owners tax bill for 2015 are:
1. 0 to 5 acres, an additional $20 is applied
2. 5.1 to 20 acres, an additional $80 is applied
3. 20.1 to 100 acres, an additional $120 is applied
4. 100.1 to 1,000 acres, an additional $240 is applied
5. 1,000+, an additional $320 is applied
As a retired senior citizen living on a fixed income, the county council has increased my property tax burden by more than 900 percent.
My property is in various small separate tracts, and as such, I am forced to pay this fire fee on each parcel of land.
My property already has rural fire coverage provided by the S.C. Forestry Department, which is paid through my S.C. state tax. And Pickens County has a tax millage applied to cover fire protection, which I already pay. So why is additional money required of me to pay?
One of my small tracts of mountain forest is land-locked, with no road access. When I asked the rural fire chief how a fire on this would be handled, he said the S.C. Forestry Department would be called in to work it. So why am I charged a fee for non-existent help?
When I spoke with council chairwoman Jennifer Willis concerning these fire fees, I asked what recourse I have as to appealing the extra cost. In a rather callous response, she said there is no recourse, and I quote, “You have to pay it.”
The next Pickens County Council meeting is October 19 at 6:30 p.m. in Pickens. But I’m concerned that many taxpayers will be unaware of the egregious fee and higher tax bills since the mail has not yet delivered these. The county council members must be made to explain and be held accountable to the voters and citizens of Pickens County for this attack on our pocketbooks.
I and other affected agricultural land owners in Pickens County need to know how six individuals can arbitrarily impose the taking of money without clear discussions, notifications or citizens voting approval.
Please, I implore you to research these issues and be a part of the upcoming meeting on Oct. 19 at 6: 30 p.m. at 222 McDaniel Ave. in Pickens.
Marie Vaughan
Easley
Appalachian music program enrollment now underway
UPSTATE — Would you like to learn how to play the guitar, banjo, fiddle or mandolin? Enrollment is now underway for the Appalachian Evening Music Program. The next session will begin the week of Monday, Oct. 19, at various locations. The enrollment period is open now and will run through Thursday, Oct. 22.
This program is open to students from third grade through adults of all ages. It is designed to teach students to play Appalachian music with the guitar, banjo, fiddle or mandolin. The cost is $60 for a six-week session and $25 for instrument rental, if needed.
Anyone interested in signing up for this new session should contact one of the following program directors:
Easley: Tuesday nights at the First Baptist Church. Contact: Susan Ware-Snow, 864-979-9188 or susu9196@gmail.com.
Greenville (downtown): Thursday nights at St. Paul United Methodist Church. Contact: Susan Ware-Snow, 864-979-9188 or susu9196@gmail.com.
Pickens: Monday and Thursday nights at the Pickens Community Center. Contact: Steve McGaha, 864-283-4871 or blindpunkin54@yahoo.com.
Salem: Monday nights at the Blue Ridge Mountain Cloggers Studio. Contact: Sharon Payne, 864 888-7916 or kendallsharon@bellsouth.net.
Six Mile: Monday nights. Contact: Jan Nations, 864-608-3171 or jhnations64@aol.com.
Walhalla: Various nights at the Oconee Heritage Center. Contact: Jennifer Moss, 864-638-2224 or moss@oconee@heritagecenter.org
The Evening Music Program is sponsored by Preserving Our Southern Appalachian Music Inc. (POSAM), a charitable non-profit organization. For more information on the Young Appalachian Musicians (YAM) program, visit www.YAMupstate.com, Facebook: “YAM (Young Appalachian Musicians),” or contact director Betty McDaniel at (864) 878-4257 or mcdanibw1@gmail.com.
