Eureka Springs Hospital’s finances are being put under a microscope.
At its regular meeting held Monday, June 23, the Eureka Springs City Council voted unanimously to request specific financial data from 2024 and 2025 from the hospital commission to be supplied “as soon as possible.”
In addition, the council voted to have an audit done on the hospital finances by an independent agency.
“We need a professional individual to look and do a review and a reconciliation and be very clear about where we are on the finances for the hospital, because I don’t want to risk losing such a wonderful asset and an economic driver for our community because we have egos involved. ” city council member Rachael Moyer said. “… On top of a lack of transparency, there is absolute misrepresentation on the part of the leadership of the [hospital] commission about what is actually happening. And I don’t know if it’s because they don’t know, or if it is because they’re hiding something. I don’t know what those reasons are. But, as long as the commission continues in the path that they’ve taken, it makes it look bad. So, there may be no malice at all, and I am an eternal optimist. And I hope that there is no malice and there’s nothing to find here. But we need to know.”
Those comments before the pair of votes specifically outlining the council’s requests of the commission came during an agenda item once again added to the meeting by Moyer. The discussion about the hospital — primarily the council voicing concerns of alleged discrepancies in recent financial numbers provided by the commission — again took up a majority of the 81-minute meeting.
Moyer presented numbers to the council that show what she says is $2 million unaccounted for based on numbers she has compiled from information provided to her. It’s that issue, along with various other financial figures questioned by the council that once again led to talk of commissioners being removed.
Former employees of the hospital once again spoke during public comments, continuing to urge the council not to overlook what they continue to say was and is a toxic work environment under the current administration, including chief financial officer Cynthia Asbury and human resources director Jodi Edmondson, the hospital’s acting CEO.
One person who spoke, April German, who worked in the hospital lab for a short period of time, said she still is owed money by the hospital.
“The hospital had a pathology lab – a pathologist and medical director, the same company for 30 years,” council member Harry Meyer said. “They quit last November and that’s why April German came in. There was no pathologist, there was no medical director. The hospital was going to go down the tubes. We heard nothing about that. It was [German’s] efforts that got it going again. She had to beg a pathologist to take it on because the word got out that this is just a s-show at our hospital, it’s people that don’t know what they’re doing and they’re mean and they fire people.
“Thirteen employees signed a letter to the commission complaining about Cynthia Asbury and delineating all the problems that they had with her, and there’s only one left working there. The 12th one was let go a couple of weeks ago, and the hospital commission chair said: ‘Oh, that was just a contract person,’ just to put us off, just tell us that ‘you don’t need to know these things.’ Just for a quick answer. And then the secretary of the commission butts in and starts to tell me that: ‘Well, you know, they were offered a different job.’ Well, they gave her job to someone else. She had the job for three years. She was doing a good job.
“Word gets out from the hospital. We now know that the job she was doing is not getting done right. We know that. You might call it innuendo or rumor, but I guarantee it’s pretty close to the truth. So yes, we have some problems and I just hope … We got a new CEO starting in August. Will that cure the problems? Unless we run out of money, maybe it will. That’s the reason why we’ve been motivated to scrutinize the commission, not because we don’t like those people, it’s just because they’re not doing their job.”
While Meyer’s comments continued to focus on human resources-related issues, the majority of the discussion centered around hospital finances and the council’s interest in getting to the bottom of what they feel are conflicts in what they see versus what is being reported by the commission and administration.
“I think it’s human nature to question other people’s motives,” Moyer said. “And I think this is why it’s so important in government to have transparency, because … we are American. … We’re very concerned with power and who has it. For a government to run properly, there needs to be transparency. And it is the lack of transparency from the commission that is creating this entire issue, in my opinion. So, people come to us constantly asking us to do something. We’re then told there’s nothing that we can do. At the end of the day, this is what we can do, I think, is we can ask for someone who knows what they’re doing, which is not me [to audit the hospital finances]…” Moyer said the council has received hospital income statements and profit-and-loss reports, but has never received the requested balance sheets.
“We’ve never received a balance sheet,” she said. “I’ve not been able to find anyone who’s ever seen a balance sheet. So, that would be an important piece for a professional to have in order to determine what in the world is going on.”
“That’s basic accounting principles, right?” council member Susane Gruning responded.
When council members indicated that they would like to see financial information beginning January 2024, Mayor Butch Berry initially said he felt that was too far back.
“… Going back two years is too far, I think,” Berry said.
“To get a balance sheet?” Moyer asked.
“For a hospital?” Gruning replied.
Moyer said she didn’t feel two years of financial data “was too much to ask.”
“That’s what we need,” Moyer said. “We need ’24 and ’25 financial data to be provided to us … so that we can get a review and reconciliation of the finances from the third party, preferably not one chosen by the commission. That only looks better for them.”
Meyer said he felt the hospital commission should foot the bill for the outside agency.
“They’re the ones that got us into this mess to begin with,” he said.
“I just want it done,” Moyer replied. “… I want it done. I think it’s like we’ve run into months and months. This started in April. Whatever is the most expeditious way would be my preference.”
Two unanimous votes followed for the requested documents since January 2024 and locating an outside firm to conduct the financial review on the hospital.
‘ANYBODY HAVE QUESTIONS … ABOUT WHERE $2 MILLION IS?’ Moyer began the hospital discussion with a presentation based on financial information that she was provided that she says shows a much bleaker picture than what was portrayed by hospital administration at its monthly meeting held Monday, June 16.
First, she wanted to clear up a back-and-forth commentary she has had with Asbury regarding hospital visitor numbers and how much tourism has played in a role in those numbers.
“So, in listening to the last hospital commission meeting, it occurred to me that there may be a misunderstanding and I wanted to take this opportunity to set that straight, at least from my perspective,” Moyer said. “I want to take the opportunity to recognize the hospital operational staff, the chief of staff, doctors, the nurses, the technical staff. You’ve got highly trained individuals in place. Even if they are contract employees, they are highly professional, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank them for their service and their professionalism.
“To clarify my concern, at least, is with not the operational staff, but specifically with the commission, the commission’s lack of financial stewardship, and the hospital administration’s leadership. The commission and the administration’s spending, their failure to address community concerns, and loss of community support. Public presentation of overly simplified and misleading information, in my opinion, is extremely embarrassing and negligent.”
Moyer then went over numbers she handed out to the council, the first showing patient visitation data that she said was shared at the June 16 commission meeting.
“This is not something that I’ve created,” she said “I got access to this and I’m sharing it with you. It was presented as definitive evidence that there’s no issue with the community’s support for the hospital. This is not complete, nor is it detailed enough to even draw a confident conclusion like that. I maintain that the trend analysis which I shared in the last meeting … gives us a better idea about what is actually happening with the community’s support of the hospital.
“The hospital may be managed by the commission, but the hospital is a city asset.”
The hospital bank balance has fallen by $2.5 million in less than a year, Moyer said.
“From July 2024 to May 2025, the hospital bank balance has dropped by $2.5 million,” she said. “ … That’s $2,500,000. Now the P&L shows a loss of $465,000 for the same time period. … With nearly a year of data, we would expect that these two amounts to start to approach each other. Instead, we have a difference here of over $2 million. This is alarming. And my question is: Where’s the money? How was the money spent?
“The fact that we have yet to receive a balance sheet, which is the very piece of data that would help us to understand where that money was spent, is highly concerning that we have not been able to access that information. And my question is: Why? Why has that not been provided? You have a CFO on staff, on salary, who should be able to develop a balance sheet, and that could be shared. My question is: Is it shared with the commission? Does the commission have questions about where that money is? Do you have questions about where the money is? Does anybody else have questions about where $2 million is?”
Gruning responded: “Absolutely. Not only questions, but we have been dealing with the budget for quite a while now and have had workshops and still no answer. So, where do we go with that? I know everyone’s getting frustrated with this whole thing, but the facts are here, the numbers are here. You can’t dispute that.”
“This is data that is provided by them,” Moyer said.
“Somebody’s missing it. I mean, somebody should be able to see this,” Gruning replied.
Some council members, and Berry, chimed in about where that money could have gone based on things they remember hearing. No one was certain, though.
“When Steve (Holifield) and I were in the workshop between the commission and council, I remember somebody saying that a huge chunk of money had to be put into another account for something that, they couldn’t account for it,” council member David Avanzino said. “Do you remember that?”
“It was the COVID, the COVID money,” Meyer said.
“No, it was the purchase of some pieces of equipment, if I’m not mistaken,” Berry replied.
“Well, I think we were told … $500,000,” Gruning said, “but we never saw it in the report, and now we’re up to $2 million. … That’s just a lot of money for a small hospital to not be able to explain or show a balance sheet or where it is. It shouldn’t be that hard. Not with a full-time paid CFO, and a CEO should be questioning it as well, let alone the commission.”
Moyer briefly returned the topic of discussion to how tourism affects hospital visitation, saying this should be the busiest time of the year for the emergency room, and it’s not.
“The first page of the handout is actually the data that was presented at the last commission meeting by, I believe it was the CFO,” Moyer said. “And their conclusion was that visitation is local, primarily local, and they’re looking at it because I guess there’s, it’s mostly Arkansas. But I mean, I run a business in town. It’s a lodging business. Many of my people come from Arkansas. This does not prove anything.
“ … It’s a very elementary- level presentation that doesn’t really tell us much. And you know, I mean, I don’t want to be in the position of calling out the CFO. I just, this is just not actual data. And it’s being presented as data with which they’re making decisions and assumptions on and I think it’s important to point out to the public …” Moyer said she’s concerned with how much spending has taken place over the past year.
“I listened to the commission meeting multiple times over and over,” she said. “So, I just wanted to take this opportunity to put it to the public for consideration so that there’s at least another perspective out there, and that’s my opinion. Under the current administration, Ms. Martin’s leadership, specifically 86 percent of the $2.5 million has been spent. It seems to me as though the argument is that the money is required to be spent to get them out of some situation. And my concern is it’s $2.5 million, and our patient revenue is lower than ever. Our patient visitation is lower that ever. You look at the trend analysis that I did last week, right? There’s an obvious cycle here, and we should be in our peak season. And we’re not. We’re lower than we have been in the five years of data available. I think that’s concerning. And to hear the commission continue to just gloss over, like, everything’s great, everything is wonderful, we’re doing great. I think there’s a problem here. I’m very concerned about it. I’m also shocked to hear that they agreed to a quarter of a million dollar CEO salary and a quarter million dollar purchase of a van …” Berry clarified that the possible purchase of a transport van for up to $225,000, not $250,000, could be funded through a grant.
“My point is that we have $2.5 million that has been spent,” Moyer said. “We’ve just heard the commission agree to another half million dollars to spend. We also had last known liabilities at $4 million. So we have a bank balance of $5.5 million. We have last known liabilities of $4 million. We don’t have anything to the contrary to say that at this point. We just agreed to at least a quarter of a million dollars in a CEO salary, and that leaves us, technically speaking, with one and a half million dollars left in the bank to spend. That is nowhere near what’s being presented by the commission, and that’s my concern.”
Berry reminded council members that the hospital finances are audited annually with no findings found in the most recent report released in January.
“I have two comments to that,” Moyer said. “One is that there was $4 million worth of unaccounted for money spent that was then recorded as a liability in case the government was to recall that money. That’s my understanding. That was found at some point, and that’s how it was posted in the accounts. Second is I think there’s a difference between an annual audit and a review and reconciliation of the budget. And I’m asking for a review and a reconciliation. So that we have, we can have all kinds of ideas about what happens to $2 million. Two million dollars is a lot of money. But until we have evidence in front of us, those things are going to swirl around. I mean, for example, somebody called me last week and said: ‘Do you think somebody stole the money?’ No, I don’t. I am not suggesting that someone took $2 million, but… to be honest with you, no one knows, because we don’t have the information that we should have available to us to know.”
Avanzino said similar thoughts have entered his mind.
“So, Rachael, if I may, you made a statement that I’ve been thinking for several weeks,” Avanzino said. “And when, as within any business or government, when money comes up missing, one of the first things that goes to your mind is: ‘Well, who took it?’Or: ‘What did they do with it?’ And that’s what I’ve been thinking for months now. And I didn’t want to say it. Thank you for having the guts to say it in an open meeting. I just get the feeling that we are consistently and constantly having the wool pulled over our eyes when it comes to financials for the hospital.
“Really when it come to anything with the hospital I feel that we’re not getting the answers that are true. So, yeah, I’m going to have to agree with you that, you know, and it’s going to come down to us, since we have very limited powers with this commission, going back to removing a commissioner. And I know that’s something that you don’t want to do, Mayor, but unless they start giving us the information we ask for, that’s literally, and I think legally, the only option that we have.”
MARTIN: MONEY NOT MISSING
Martin told the Times-Echo by email on Tuesday, June 24, that there is no money missing and said she was concerned at Moyer’s ‘misleading’ information.
‘“I will have to go back and double check every month for inaccuracies,” Martin wrote when asked to comment on the numbers Moyer presented to council. “I don’t know why [Rachael] Moyer needs to make a separate document when every month the real financials have been provided with the actual expenditures.”
Martin said there is not $2 million missing; in fact, documents have shown where that money was spent.
“This is a dangerous habit that is causing confusion and feeding into her misleading accusation that there is $2 [plus million] ‘missing’ — even her chart shows it’s not ‘missing’— it was spent — all she did was add up the expenditures,” Martin wrote. “And if you look at the real P&L you will see where the expenditures were made.
“And we have explained several times that a large portion was spent on capital investments — especially technology — and we provided an itemized list of those expenditures at the last commission/council workshop.”
Moyer’s handouts showed that the hospital’s bank balance had decreased by $2,492,919 from the end of July 2024 to the end of May 2025. Over that same period, the hospital’s monthly income statements show a total loss of $465,181.
Martin said the two figures represent “totally different” things, “Well, for starters they are two different base points and financial views:” Martin said in an email to the Times-Echo. “The Balance is a starting balance for August of $7,730,725 – then she accumulates the total expenses for each month to get to the ending balance for May of $5,551,554 which just tells you the difference from the starting to the ending balance.
“The Income Statement (her P&L) is a totally different view of the financials – it simply tells you on a month-tomonth basis what the profit or loss was for that month – and she simply accumulated it.
“That’s operational profit/loss that has nothing to do with the beginning/ ending balance.
“Which is why the monthly numbers on each chart don’t match they are not intended to – they are different calculations.”
HOSPITAL RESOLUTION Overshadowed by the talk of an immediate request for information from the hospital commission, the council also approved a resolution that will require the commission to report certain information on a regular basis throughout the year.
The resolution calls for the commission to submit P&L statements, balance sheets and cashflow statements on a monthly basis to the mayor and council, along with the annual financial audit report.
PUBLIC COMMENTS, MAYOR’S RESPONSE
Five former hospital employees spoke during public comments, with three going to the podium saying they were yielding their time to the final speaker, German, the former lab employee at the hospital.
In the past, people speaking were able to submit leftover time from their three-minute allotment to the following speaker, but Berry said that wasn’t happening at the June 23 meeting.
“By the way, there is no yielding of time,” the mayor said. “You have three minutes to discuss. We don’t do continuing yielding to allow somebody 30 minutes to discuss something. All you have three minutes.”
Former hospital employee Richard Webb spoke, again saying more should be done to address the alleged mistreatment of former employees.
“Everyone appreciates the fact that the council is investigating the money and the finances. That is important, but there are a lot more human things at play,” Webb said. “A lot of good people have been hurt by what has taken place over the last two-and-a-half years at this hospital. Tonight, we would like to ask the council to request a list of every person that has either quit or been terminated since the current CFO, Cynthia Asbury, was hired back in 2023. Contact these people and listen to their stories of what actually took place. And investigate the allegations of wrongful termination, intimidation, retaliation and bullying by the current CFO, Cynthia Asbury, and current acting CEO Jodi Edmondson since mid-2023. I know it may seem ridiculous to a lot of people that my wife and I are still coming to these meetings and asking for this to be investigated, but a lot of good people, former and current employees as well as members of this community have been hurt and lost everything they worked for and had to suffer mentally and financially over what these people did. All of these people deserve answers.
“Tonight, we speak for ourselves as well as all of them. Also, we would like the council to reach out to Dr. [John] House. Sandy Martin, commission chair, has stated that she was in contact with Dr. House over his proposal to take over the hospital to solve the terrible situation it’s in. We ask the council to reach out to Dr. House to determine if this is in fact true or just another untrue statement by Ms. Martin. Remember, the evil that people do lives on. These people need to be held accountable for their actions, just as the good people hurt by them deserve justice because of them. Thank you.”
Former employee Tina Adams said Berry wasn’t doing enough to address the situation.
“I would like to say, even though I have not been here for a while, I have not given up fighting for the dismissal of Jodi Edmondson and Cynthia Asbury for violence in the workplace and retaliation,” Adams said. “… I believe that the mayor is still not standing up for us victims. And he, in his own way, is bullying and using his powers so the victims can’t have a spot on the agenda.”
German, technical director of Lab Connections, a “medical laboratory consulting firm,” told council members that she was initially contacted in November 2024 about coming to work in the lab at the hospital.
“I personally stepped in and performed normal bench work and kept the lab stable for three months,” German said. “Despite all that we accomplished there, today I’m here to address the fact that they have unpaid my invoice for services rendered … So far, this invoice has been ignored.
“This reflected significant onsite and offsite work. That goes into the whole development of blood bank, quality control, competencies, staffing, training, an entire month;s of work as long as well as completing an audit, the first audit of the year.”
German said she was also falsely accused of a data breach and HIPAA violation.
“… This claim is false and unsupported,” she said.
During his mayoral comments at the end of the council meeting, Berry addressed some of the comments the former employees made.
“There were comments and public comments about people wanting the city council to take action against the bullying and against wrongful termination and all that,” the mayor said. “And I’m sure the council is aware of as much as I am too. There’s nothing that we can do about that. The correct action of that is in the courts. If they have a problem and think they’ve been wrongly terminated, or there’s bullying, or there are legal problems, they can always take their actions, and they should take it to court to get it resolved, and the same thing with other things that are going on and through there, which we’ve got on our agenda. Those are legal actions. They’re not items to be taken up before the city council, because if we do take those items up we tend to possibly get ourselves into trouble in the future as being part of the litigation and or possible suits as individuals which would take us out of our tort immunity.
“So, those are all legal actions that belong within the hospital or within the people who think they who believe they’ve been wrongly terminated or have some sort of an action against the hospital. I know there’s lawyers out there, and we all do, who will be glad to take up their case and sue the city. They love it. Or the hospital, as the case may be. But, we have to be careful with that. That’s the place for those actions. It’s not with the city council or the public meetings like this. As much as I regret them going through whatever they had to go through, this is still not the place. And I know they feel like I’m, as one of them said, I’m bullying them by not getting it on the agenda. I’m just trying to protect the city from getting into any more lawsuits.”
