KELLY BEQUEST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 156, 18 June 1935, Page 8

KELLY BEQUEST

TYING-UP PROPOSAL

Minister Replies to Board

RECONSIDERATION ADVISED

Replying to a request for his opinion regarding a proposal that the capital moneys of the Kelly bequest be vested in the Public Trustee for a period of 15 years, the Minister of Health. Sir Alexander Young, yesterday advised the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board that before it decided upon such a course it should ascertain what specific advantages are to be obtained. The board decided to defer its reply until after its next meeting, and that each member be supplied with a copy of the Minister's letter.

The Minister’s letter was as follow.— “I am in receipt of your letter of April 26, requesting an opinion on a proposal before the board ‘that the capital moneys of the Kelly Bequest be vested in the Public Trustee for a period of 15 years in order that the income thereupon be available for maintenance purposes’. “In reply,' I desire'to remind the board that when its application tor Ministerial consent to capital expenditure on . extensions to the Hastings Hospital was under consideration the department had asked that as a condition of that consent the board agree to the ‘tying up’ of capital of the Kelly ■Bequest. However, your board had expressed itself as opposed to this condition. In this connection I refer to your letter of May 10, and also to the representations made to me on behalf of the board at the conference held at Hastings on June 12. • “Following these representations 1 •greed to waive the condition as to the ‘tying up’ of the capital of the Kelly Bequest, and as your board knows have since consented to capital expenditure on extensions to the Hastings Hospital without imposing such condition.

“Capital expenditure already consented to iu connection with this hospital includes: (a) £13,213 on building, the expenditure to be met out of donations and bequests. (Formal consent for this amount was signed today in substitution for consent issued September 17, 1934, for £11,987 which did not include extras, etc., under the contract), (b) £229 10/- on boiler house, the expenditure to be met out of Kelly Bequest. Consent given on February 8, 1935. (c) £2lOO for heating and eteam services, expenditure to be met out of levy and subsidy. Consent given on December 11, 1931. (£5OO of the amount is regarded as maintenance expenditure and renewals and £l6OO as capital expenditure). (d) £286 for tar-sealing of roads, expenditure to be met by levy and subsidy. Consent to this expenditure applied for under date April 16 is being signed today. “In addition to the above it is noted frqm your board's capital estimates that further capital expenditure is contemplated at Hastings Hospital as follows :—

Outpatient and massage £2130. Outpatient and massage heating <370.

Operating theatre £1278. Operating theatre heating £222. Equipment £l5OO. “With the exception of the lastmentioned item (which is already agreed may be provided by levy and subsidy) this further proposed expenditure, it approved, may have to be met from donations and bequests available lor that purpose. “From the information on the department's files provision lias also yet to be-made for the reimbursement out of the Kelly Bequest moneys of the special fund created by Mrs Lowry’s gilt temporarily used for the recent extensions to the Hastings Hospital. “It is for your board, with a knowledge of the" present position of the Kelly Estate investments, to determine what portion of the capital should be left realisable within the next few years in order to meet the above and any other probable demands. “.Moreover, before it comes to a decision to invest the remainder of the capital of the estate for a fixed term, the board should ascertain what specific advantages are thus to be obtained, and that legal and other objections previously advanced on behalf of the board (1 refer particularly to the presentations made at the conference held at Hastings on June 12) cannot now be sustained.”