John Stucke

Registered nurses at Empire Health Services are voting on a pay increase this week that should ease a widening wage disparity with Sacred Heart Medical Center. The proposal – affecting about 900 nurses at Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital and Medical Center – was negotiated by Empire management and SEIU 1199NW, the union representing nurses. It is expected to pass.

The management team credited with rescuing Empire Health Services from insolvency and putting its troubled hospitals into a position for possible sale earned $1 million for the effort in 2005. That is an amount equal to nearly half the company's $2.4 million profits that year.

The Fox Theater. It has a pleasant ring to it. In the next couple of months, the theater may have a longer name. A private donor has paid $3 million for the naming rights of the art deco jewel built 76 years ago in downtown Spokane.

Bankruptcy lawyers have overbilled the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, sometimes having multiple attorneys review the same documents and attend the same meetings and court hearings, according to the U.S. Trustee's Office. Though the trustee hasn't yet recommended how much money should be trimmed from the millions in unpaid legal fees that have been accruing since the diocese filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2004, the amount could be significant.

Gretchen Borck, the well-known spokeswoman and lobbyist for the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, has been let go as grain industry groups in the state consolidate. She received notice last week after 14 years on the job.

Eastern Washington's Catholic parishes will begin an ambitious campaign in April to raise $10 million for their contribution to the Spokane Diocese bankruptcy settlement. Exactly how the parishes will fulfill their obligation has yet to be decided, but this much is clear:

Avista Corp. predicted flat sales and static profit levels for 2007, due in part to the rejection of a rate increase by Washington state regulators last month. The company anticipates once again filing for higher rates by midyear, though the revenues from a successful effort wouldn't likely take effect until 2008.

Spokane residents told federal regulators that looks do matter when it comes to the Spokane River, and they want plenty of water roaring over the scenic downtown falls throughout the summer. The question now is, how much water should Avista be required to run in the river during the summer? The answer will be handed down by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as it issues new licenses for the utility's five river dams. FERC held public hearings on a draft environmental impact statement Thursday that drew about 100 people.

The region's hospitals are beginning to see gains after years of financial restructuring. Each reported improved profitability in 2006.

Energy won't be cheap this year, but the region shouldn't have to brace for big price jumps to heat, cool and light homes and businesses. Brian Hirshkorn, senior rate analyst at Avista, said the utility serving Spokane and North Idaho anticipates that declining natural gas prices may ease heating costs later this year and next winter.

Avista Corp. shareholders will be asked to vote on a growing corporate governance trend of electing directors to one-year terms. Each director on the company's 10-member board is now elected to three-year terms. As the terms are staggered, a slate of directors is up for election every year.

Two former Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. executives and a Rochester, Wash., businessman accused of fraud have settled lawsuits pressed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The men, including former Metropolitan controller Robert Ness, a former vice president, Thomas Masters, and businessman Dan W. Sandy allegedly played separate roles in what federal investigators say was a series of corrupt real estate deals that inflated Metropolitan's profitability and hid the firm's deteriorating financial condition. The deception allowed Metropolitan to continue selling stocks and bonds to investors and escape regulatory scrutiny, according to the suit.

Empire Health Services will freeze its pension plan on April 1 as part of a retirement benefits overhaul and offer a larger dollar-match for popular tax-deferred savings accounts. The changes were outlined in a booklet mailed to about 2,500 employees of Deaconess Medical Center and those at Valley Hospital and Medical Center last week. An executive team met with about 100 employees in focus groups last year and kept notes of informal inquiries that suggested employees were eager for more control of their retirement planning and did not understand the promise of the pension plan.

Goodrich Corp. will pay $510,000 in fines after a pollution investigation by state and local regulators found the company's eight-year-old factory west of Spokane flushed dangerous chemicals into the sewers and failed to secure proper permits. The fines are among the largest environmental penalties ever meted out in Eastern Washington by the state Department of Ecology and the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority and reflect concern that the plant has been operating outside water and air quality regulations since it opened in 1999.

Within 20 years, more of the electricity that lights our homes and powers our business computers may come from coal. A review of long-range planning studies and memos shows that Avista Utilities, the company built on hydropower dams on regional rivers and once named Washington Water Power, will turn increasingly to burning fossil fuels.

A $48 million proposed settlement that would end the Catholic Diocese of Spokane bankruptcy doesn't go far enough to expose pedophile priests, a handful of victims said Thursday afternoon. About 190 people have filed bankruptcy claims alleging they were sexually abused by Catholic priests over several decades. The settlement, which was announced in early January, begins to outline how much victims would be paid. It also requires Bishop William Skylstad to publish the names of priests – dead and alive – who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

Uninsured, poor patients will get a break on their hospital bills under a new set of charity care guidelines announced Wednesday. The policy, adopted by all community hospitals across Washington, is designed to help the state's 600,000 uninsured people and stave off potential legislation.

A $48 million settlement designed to pay victims of clergy sex abuse should help end the Catholic Diocese of Spokane bankruptcy this spring, a federal judge said Friday. "As you well know I was pushing very hard to get this case resolved by this time," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams said during a 90-minute hearing in Spokane. "I am very pleased that the proponents of the plan have managed to negotiate and agree upon the plan's terms."