Moore: We begin this Friday edition of Ozarks at Large with a familiar voice. With us on the line from his office in Fort Smith is Michael Tilley from Talk Business and Politics. Happy Friday, Michael.
Tilley: Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me back.
Moore: Okay. Well, we're going to start with the bad news first, the tougher news first, and then we're going to work our way towards some good news and some better news. Let's start with talking about Baptist Health in Fort Smith. We've seen some news about the labor and delivery division being closed down. We have seen earlier this month that you guys reported that they have announced that they're cutting at least another 70 jobs.
Tilley: Yeah, it's the hits keep on coming, as they say. But the hospital system, which is based out of Little Rock, has announced at least that we know of 260 hospital staff, nursing and physician cuts, in three separate announcements since late March. And the latest was a little earlier this month, 70 jobs.
And that came shortly after they announced that they've closed several clinics and services. And that was the big hit. In that announcement, they said they were going to cut 150 jobs, including 10 positions. The 70 cuts, this most recent cuts, we were told by several sources that they would be in the clinic administration area, pharmacy, radiology, case coordination, facilities maintenance and sterile processing for equipment and that kind of thing.
And so this continues from that, like I said, that late March when rumors began that they were going to close down all of the hospital or significant parts. And Baptist never really directly answered, kind of let some of those rumors fly, but they've been slowly announcing these changes. And like you said, they did in late March announce they're closing their labor and delivery operation, that was about 40 jobs.
Now Baptist asserts, every time they put these press releases out, they assert that they are not closing the hospital fully, that they will be keeping, for example, surgery, some ICU, some limited area, but we're still being told that it will not function as a typical hospital at some point in the future. Let's hope that's not true. And Baptist has even said they're going to spend $20 million at the Fort Smith facility over the next few years to transition. The word they use quite a bit is the transition of its Fort Smith campus. And so, let's hope there's a positive transition.
And I don't say any of this to be negative about Baptist. I mean, the entire medical system in the country is facing a lot of headwinds. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, as we all know, decided to reduce reimbursements for Medicare, Medicaid, insurance companies are reducing some of what they cover. So it's a tough time to be in the hospital health care industry.
Moore: Well, we've got some good news in the world of health care in the River Valley. Dr. Jo Alice Blondin, who has a history of academic leadership in the region, has been named the interim president of Arkansas Colleges of Health Education.
Tilley: Yes. So Kyle Parker, as we announced and talked about earlier, he was the first president of the college. He was the organizer, the dreamer, and got it off the ground. He's stepping back, which is not unusual. I think you often see the type of person that has to get something going, the dreamer, the visionary, is not the person that sticks around to manage it once it's up and going. So it's kind of a natural transition.
And Dr. Blondin, I've known her forever and I know I'm supposed to be an old crusty journalist that doesn't like people, but I like her. You know, sometimes you meet someone in just a few minutes, you know that this person is kind of a world beater. Someone who can walk into any situation and make it better. And she's that person.
She was at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith for a while. She was at Arkansas Tech in Ozark, then moved up to Springfield, Ohio to run Clark State College. She's been there for several years. Big accomplishments there. But she retired from that. And as you said, is the interim president. She'll begin on July 13th in that role.
So it'll be interesting. I haven't talked to Dr. Blondin. I don't know if it's truly an interim role. Maybe, you know, if she's there just to get them to find that person who can lead them in the future, or maybe she'll take it on full time. Maybe this is kind of a on-job interview, so to speak. But kudos to the colleges for bringing her in to keep it going. Unless she's changed in some way, she's a great fit for the college and for the community.
Moore: We saw data came out earlier this month that the average weekly wages in the fourth quarter of 2025 were up more than 5% in Crawford County, and they were up 3% in Sebastian County compared to that same quarter in 2024. What does that tell us about how things are looking as far as making money in the region?
Tilley: Well, so it's good news. Now, these are the fourth quarter 2025, that's the latest numbers from the feds. But yeah, so the average weekly wages in the Sebastian County area were up 4.1%. Crawford County wages were up almost 5%.
Now the total wages paid in the quarter, they were up a little over 3% in Sebastian County, just under a billion dollars. But total wages paid in the quarter in Crawford County, maybe the only negative in the report, was down about 3%. So that's a function of just there were fewer people working in the county. So it's kind of counterintuitive, if wages go up, how did total wages paid go down. But it's a function of just fewer people working.
But in the region, the average weekly wages during that quarter ranged between just a little over $1,100 a week in Sebastian County to $835 in Sequoyah County. So that's the range, and that's a considerable range.
But anyway, like I said, good news on the wage front, you want to see that kind of growth. The region was down just a bit compared to the average growth in Arkansas. But I'm one of those folks that believe that if you stripped out Benton and Washington County, the Arkansas average would probably come down below what the average was in the Fort Smith region. I mean, Benton County was up, I think, close to 11%.
And the one other thing I'll quickly note on this, we know instinctively that Sebastian County is the dominant county in the metro. But sometimes the statistics we get from the feds or state can reinforce that. For example, of the combined almost 7,900 business establishments in the six counties that we looked at, Sebastian County accounted for almost 49% of those. So that was just an interesting, I'm kind of a numbers geek, and every once in a while those pop out to provide a picture of just where the business center is in the metro.
Moore: Finally here, the Bass Reeves Legacy Loop in Fort Smith is possibly, maybe potentially going to happen.
Tilley: Yeah, all of those things, yes, sir. So before U.S. President Trump was inaugurated in the second term, this Bass Reeves Legacy Loop trail network, 14 miles long, roughly, was approved by the federal government. It's about a $25 million plan.
Well, we all remember when President Trump came on board, a lot of these funding projects were halted, some canceled, some halted, some changed. And so this is part of that. And so the feds came back and said, okay, we're going to rename the program, redo it, rejigger it. And so here you guys, let's push this through again.
Now it kind of worked out, Sara Deuster is director of Parks and Recreation for Fort Smith, looked at it and, you know, some of these costs in the program were formulated back in 2022, 2023. So I don't have to tell your audience, your listening audience that construction costs and cost of steel and concrete have risen significantly since then.
So Sara Deuster and other folks in the city worked to come up with a different plan, because the original plan, which was estimated around 25, a little over $25 million, based on inflation, some other cost would have come in around $40 million. So anyway, long story short, they have changed some of the routes, changed some of the projects they were going to do within this loop. But they're still pushing it forward.
It would still connect to a large part of the community. Sara Deuster notes that instead of a loop, it's going to be more of a line, and it will connect from downtown Fort Smith through Fort Smith and potentially at some point will connect to some of the trails at Ben Geren, which is in the kind of south Fort Smith, it's a county park. And then from Ben Geren, the county is working on trails, and we've reported on this previously, that will stretch way into Sebastian County. This could end up being kind of a Razorback Greenway type thing at some point.
So it's been presented to the Fort Smith board. The Fort Smith board will have to ultimately approve it because there's about $4.4 million roughly that the city would have to pony up. But the city has the money already, and it comes from the sales tax portion for parks and recreation capital projects. So it's not something the city would have to go find money from one pot to bring to another pot, it's already there. So we'll see.
Now again, Sara Deuster noted several times to the board that she encouraged them to make it happen. And her comment was, "We can capitalize on almost $25 million in funds that we otherwise would not have." So I look forward to reporting on this and see where it goes in terms of decisions around the bend.
Moore: Well, whatever they end up calling it or whatever it ends up looking like shape-wise, you can find all of those details at TalkBusiness.net. Michael, thank you as always for your time.
Tilley: You're welcome, sir.
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