Maricopa County voters in Arizona have approved Proposition 409, authorizing up to $898M in general obligation bonds to modernize and expand Valleywise Health’s hospital and clinic network. The measure will fund construction and renovations across the county to increase behavioral-health capacity, emergency response and outpatient access.
Bond funds will support a new behavioral-health hospital on Valleywise’s Roosevelt campus to replace a facility built in 1978. The replacement will add 200 beds and expand services for court-ordered treatment and inpatient psychiatric care. The plan also includes a new outpatient surgery and specialty care center, upgrades to the Arizona Burn Center and emergency departments, and renovations to labor and delivery units on the hospital’s fifth and sixth floors.
Bond proceeds will also enhance teaching and training facilities. Valleywise serves as Arizona’s only public teaching hospital, training more than 300 physicians each year and supporting over 3,000 clinical rotations for medical, nursing and allied-health students. The expansion will help attract and retain healthcare professionals while meeting demand from a population projected to grow 24 percent by 2030.
The bonds will be repaid through secondary property taxes. The measure authorizes an increase “sufficient to pay annual debt service” but the district notes that rates will remain within statutory limits and past bond obligations are being retired on schedule. Projects will be monitored by the Maricopa County Special Health Care District Board of Directors and external audits, continuing the fiscal accountability established with the 2014 bond program that financed the new Valleywise Health Medical Center.
Officials said construction will roll out in phases through 2035, beginning with design and procurement in 2026. Once complete, the improvements are expected to double behavioral-health capacity, reduce emergency-room wait times and expand access to trauma and burn services for the region’s growing population.
Photo by davidpinter, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, from Wikimedia Commons
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