• Three Chief Executive Officers

• Three Chief Financial Officers

• Five legal advisors

• Three chief administrators at its four tax-funded hospitals

• A seven member board of trustees that functions more like Snow White's Seven Dwarfs.

   All this with a current budget of $3.8 billion (up a billion since 2005).
   Oh yes.
   In FY 2005, the tax-funded district reported a bottom line profit of $60 million.
   Last year (FY 2009) , it suffered combined losses of $15 million.
   Which is a downward plunge of some $75 million.
   But it gets even worse:
   Like it's virtually impossible tell who is in charge of the giant health care system.
   How and why?
   The simple answer might be that the Hospital District is what happens when you mix big money, politics and health care.
    After all, the North District's board of commissioners is appointed by the Governor of Florida – largely based on each member's party politics, campaign donations, or college fraternity.
   Which certainly brings an excess of ignorance and personalities rather than knowledge and principles to the District Commissioners' routinely contentious meetings
    However...
    With four hospitals and an average daily patient population of more than 900, the North District is mirrored by an identical tax-funded South Broward Hospital District with five hospitals and an average daily population of more than 1,000.
    Plus...
    Compared to the North District, the South District's history, culture and management style is like brain surgery versus a knife fight.
    But don't take my word for it.
    Just do a word search for the two giant health systems in the local media.Because – from the New Times to the Sun-Sentinel – the difference in the “hits” you'll encounter for the two Health Districts will blow even the most dispassionate mind.
    The reason?
     Frank Sacco, the CEO of the South Broward Health District, who – for years – has run the giant health care system like a Jedi Master married to a Marine Drill Instructor.
     While only a few miles to the North, what we have is a health care bucket of crabs.
     Even worse...
     As the man ultimately responsible for the Administrative Cluster F*ck that is Broward Health, Florida's Governor Charlie Good Time Crist is totally clueless, dumber than dirt and slap-happy stupid – which should make him one hell of a Senator from the nation's fourth largest state.
     Okay.
     Maybe we're a tad indelicate in labeling Broward Health a Cluster F*ck.
      So...
       How come Broward Health goes through lawyers like a hooker goes through sailors when the fleet's in?
       Because since 2005, the North District's Less Than Magnificent Seven Commissioners have gone through five lawyers:
       Bill Sherer (fired in 2005)
       Laura Seidman (resigned in 2008)
       Troy Kishbaugh (replaced in 2008)
       Marc Goldstone (fired in 2009)
       Sam Goren – the district's current lawyer de jure and de jour.
       Which, as management styles go, is clinically bi-polar.
       But it gets worse.
       Each District lawyer is responsible for a multi-million dollar legal budget.
       Which, upon review, reflects a history that's equally bi-polar:

Broward Health
Fiscal Year        Legal Expenses
2005/06              $5.6 million
2006/07              $2.9 million
2007/08              $5.0 million
2008/09              $6.0 million
2009/10              $6.6 million (budgeted)

     So what happened in FY 2007?
     That was the year Laura Seidman reduced the District's legal expenses by nearly half – under instructions from the District's then CEO Alan Levine.
      And in FY 2008?
      That's when Seidman resigned after Commission Chairman Miguel Fernandez (Charlie Crist's Pi Kappa Alpha* frat brother and drug salesman) accused her of “ineffective management of the Legal Department.”
       Oh yes.
       Fernandez chose to verbally crucify Seidman at a Commission meeting after she'd written a memo to the District's Director of Compliance and Ethics stating:
       “At least three of the current (District) Commissioners are using their public offices and powers improperly and for their own purposes – not for the purpose for which the position was created.”
       What's more, Seidman claimed that former Broward Health CEO Alan Levine had resigned several months before because “he could not be controlled” by the Commissioners.
       Plus, she added, “I cannot be controlled and (so) it looks like I am next.”
       As an aside:
       For those further interested in the District's tawdry legal antics, I recommend a visit to the Broward Palm Beach New Times web site where the very talented Net Journalist Tom Francis will give you details sordid enough to produce projectile vomiting.
       And finally....
       In 2005, the North Broward District had nine Executive Officers.
       While today, it boast 17 top bureaucrats – each knocking down an extremely obese six-figure salary. 
       Also, only three of the nine Executive Officers working for the District five years ago are still working for Broward Health – which suggests a management mortality rate higher than the first wave to hit Omaha Beach on D-Day..
       Not that Governor Charlie Good Time gives a flying patootie.
       Anyhow...
       If all this doesn't suggest a Health Care Cluster F*ck, then I'm the illegitimate son of the Wizard of Oz.
       CONCLUSION: If there is anyother Broward County in an alternate universe, one would hope there's a Grand Jury trying to understand why the two huge health care districts are so putrageously different.

       *NOTE: Rumor has it Pi Kappa Alpha's secret recognition sign consists of squeezing the taxpayers' balls with one hand while picking their pockets with the other.