“I just can’t make sense of it. I’ve been over every line a dozen times. Our patient load is actually down year over year. We’ve started to send veterans home.” She smiled in spite of herself. “Suze, do you see anything I might have missed? I was hoping to solve this myself before getting the accountants involved, it being my first full fiscal year as the head of this hospital.”
“I wish I did.” Susie flipped the pages of the reports in front of her and started entering numbers into her adding machine. “Did you put in new heating this year?”
“No. Charles had all that upgraded right before the war. It’s been just over five years. We might have needed some repairs but certainly not an entirely new system.”
“Hmmm. Did you get all new mattresses?”
“No! What do you see?” Ruth leaned over to look at the pages Susie was examining.
“Look at this: the monthly spending on these six line items . . . it goes up a little bit each month this year. I think this is your culprit.” She flipped back and forth through the pages of the Facilities Management section of the budget. “None of the expenses are that large on their own, but they add up to a big increase in spending if you combine them.”
“But we didn’t upgrade any of these things. At least I didn’t authorize it.” Ruth looked at Susie, scrunching her eyes to makes sense of what was dawning on her. “Roy handles this part of the budget. He’s supposed to clear any significant increases with me, of course. But, I’ve been overwhelmed. You know I like to visit with the patients as much as I can during the day—could he have made all these decisions without me knowing? Have I been so remiss in doing my job that I missed this?”
“I honestly don’t know, Raff, but there is one easy way to find out. Go ask the man.”
“Thank you for your help, Suze.” Ruth stood up. “I don’t want to take up more of your day and I think, now, I have enough to get to the bottom of this.”
“Are you kidding? I want to know what the hell happened. I’m not going anywhere. I can wait.”
“You are too much.” Ruth laughed. “Thank you.”
She made her way to Roy’s office filled with a mix of anger and shame. She had given Roy a lot of latitude over the budget so that she could maintain her close patient relationships. That was a big part of why she hired him. Charles had encouraged it. But had she let him do too much unchecked? At the end of the day, the fiscal management of the hospital was her responsibility. She had to ensure funds were properly allocated.
“Roy, do you have a moment?” She walked into his office without knocking. Roy was an unremarkable-looking man. He stood an inch or two shorter than Ruth, a perfectly average height, and had light brown hair with eyes to match. He made up for his average looks by always dressing exceedingly well—his hair Brylcreem-combed to perfection, his suit and tie always the latest fashion. Ruth found it perplexing given that most of his days were spent with patients, but she hadn’t given it much more thought than that.
“Of course.” His tone was not entirely welcoming. “What do you need?”
“Well, I’m going over our year-end fiscal reports, and I see a large increase in spending that I don’t remember authorizing.”
“And?” he snapped at her, almost impatient.
“And”—she looked at him sharply—“I need to understand what these purchases were.”
“I make numerous facilities purchases over the year, Mrs. Apter. If I came to you for approval on every one, neither of us would get any other work done.”
“I appreciate that, but these are steady monthly increases that simply make no sense. I know you are fastidious about your record keeping, so I imagine it should be no problem to find the receipts for me. I just need to understand what we bought and why so I can explain it to the board.”