(Host) Costs continue to rise for a major renovation project at Vermont’s largest hospital. Fletcher Allen Health Care recently told state regulators that the final price tag of its Renaissance Project will reach $362.5 million. That’s about $6.5 million higher than the hospital’s estimate last winter.
The project is under construction and the state has given the hospital interim approval to spend the money. Bruce Spector is a lawyer with the Department of Banking, Securities and Health Care Administration. He says the review is complicated by the fact that construction has already begun.
(Spector) “It’s very difficult when it’s already ongoing. But it had to be reviewed again, because it went well beyond what’s already been approved. To stop it, both former Commissioner Betsy Costle and the current commissioner, John Crowley, have concluded would have been more of a negative fallout from that in terms of cost and delay.”
(Host) The hospital originally won state approval to spend $173 million. The latest estimate includes $4 million in costs that the state says should be included in the final estimate.