By LEONARD GRAY

Managing Editor

LULING — Ever-climbing construction costs, with the blame laid on Hurricane Katrina, pushed St. Charles Parish Hospital in Luling to borrow $5.5 million for the construction of a new hospital wing.

The loan application, though, needs voter approval on Saturday’s ballot in St. Charles Parish.

On the same ballot, Hospital Administrator Fred Martinez is asking for voter approval for extension of the existing property tax, at a reduced rate, for operations and maintenance.

One ballot item does not hinge upon the other, Martinez stated.

The new hospital wing is part of a long-range $18.5 million facility improvement program, designed to upgrade several services, and bring them up to current standards, which have so far been allowed to stand, having been grandfathered in on earlier standards.

New in-patient rooms, intensive care unit, dialysis center, cardiovascular operating rooms and psychiatric facility, are among the improvements and upgrades planned for the new wing, with patient rooms moved off the ground floor for security and safety, Martinez said.

Prior to Katrina, the hospital would have had sufficient funds for the expansion, but according to Martinez, construction costs have increased 40 percent, and construction bids have come in 37 percent higher than anticipated.

Should voters approved the ballot item, and with funds already accumulated, construction could immediately begin on the new wing, Martinez said.

The operations and maintenance proposition is normally not up for renewal until 2010, but Martinez said the extension to 2015 of up to 2.48 mills would keep the income steady. In 2003, voters approved it at 2.53 mills.