SHARON — On Jan. 18, Sharon Hospital President and CEO Kimberly Lumia informed employees that unknowns resulting from the ‘“fiscal cliff’ and state of Connecticut budget cuts necessitated a temporary freeze on any merit pay increases for all employees.In a meeting with The Lakeville Journal, Lumia, Chief Financial Officer Mark Reyngoudt and Jill Groody Musselman, the hospital’s business development and communications officer, stressed it was the unknowns resulting from the state and federal economic struggles that forced the hospital to take a close look at ways to keep costs down.Reyngoudt said, “the hospital is financially stable and is making a modest profit.” He added that,“We are meeting the needs of the community in an efficient manner.”But, he said, “The state of Connecticut is cutting reimbursements to hospitals by $100 million.”Sharon Hospital is one of three hospitals in the state that is getting hit particularly hard by the cut. Reyngoudt explained these reimbursements are to help hospitals cover the costs of treating patients who can not pay for services but that the hospital is required to treat.Last year, Sharon Hospital was also hit with a state provider tax of $2.2 million. Reyngoudt said, “The more the state reimburses hospitals, the more it receives in Medicaid assistance from the U.S. government.” That was the thinking behind the ‘provider tax’ in which hospitals and nursing home providers are charged a tax on each bed per night. The state then in theory repays that tax to providers with a slight profit. The CFO said, “Sharon Hospital was one of three hospitals in the state that did not benefit from this scheme. As a result, we had to cut 26 FTE [full-time equivalent jobs] last year.” Because of state budget challenges, the state will not be making a rebate payment, due in May 2013. That will cost Sharon Hospital $411,000.According to Reyngoudt, the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obamacare) does not pay for itself, “Even the Congressional Budget Office predicted it will generate a high deficit.”With an uncertain nationwide financial future, Reyngoudt said Sharon Hospital has to be careful with its budget.However, one area in which spending continues is capital projects designed to improve and expand patient care. Sharon Hospital is spending $2.1 million on a new 64 slice CT scanner. The scanners make multiple images (or slices) through a patients’s body. Older machines made eight, 16 or 32 slices (the machine now in use in Sharon makes eight slices). The new machine will make 64 slices, providing radiologists with more detailed images to evaluate. Reyngoudt also said the new machine will also emit lower doses of radiation than the older machines.“We want to provide patient services, we do not want to cut jobs,” Reyngoudt said. “That was why we decided it would be better to temporarily forego merit pay increases, rather than skimp on patient care and services.” The hospital has 78 beds, including 12 which are in an acute bed locked psychiatric unit, primarily for seniors with mental challenges such as dementia. Lumia agreed that the goal of a freeze is to allow the hospital to keep its full staff and not lay anyone off.“Our goal is not to reduce the work force,” she said. Sharon Hospital currently has 283 full-time equivalent employees, including full-time and part-time staff.Sharon was the first for-profit hospital in the state. It is now owned by Regional Health Care Partners, which Lumia said is profitable. “Each of the seven hospitals that are part of the group carries its own weight,” she said. In addition to sending a letter to all employees, Lumia said meetings are being held with staff to explain the temporary merit pay freeze.Sharon Hospital has a governing board and an advisory board. The hospital recently announced two new members of the Governing Board: Howard Fuhr and Rusty Chandler. Ralph Fidele was newly named to the Advisory Board.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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