a
are elected for four-year terms, in the odd-numbered years; the two incumbent members

whose terms expired in 1953 were re-elected at the first public election under the new law, in

February 1953, and the other three incumbents will serve until February 1955.

The long-time Superintendent of Schools, F. Robert Wegner, under whose guidance the
local school system grew to its present size and caliber, died in office in May 1953. The

Board of Educational Trustees chose as his successor Dr. Lewis G. Allbee, who had been

Assistant Superintendent of Schools,

Prior to September 1, 1949, the entire cost of operating the schools at Los Alamos
was borne by the Federal Government(as part of the Zia Company's cost of operating the
Los Alamos community). When the schools became part of the New Mexico school system,

they began to share in State and County payments for operation of county schools.
portion of the total cost borne by the AEC has steadily decreased since that time.

The proThe total

budgeted expense for the operation of the public schools in Los Alamos County during each
of the three fiscal years under review, with the percentage of such cost borne by the AEC
through grants-in-aid to the boards, was as follows:

1950-1951
Total Cost of Operating the Schools

60. 6%

1952-1953

$775, 381

$820, 292

45.8%

26. 0%

ee

Per cent Contributed by AEC

$653, 809

1951-1952

The Los Alamos Medical Center
The transitional aspects of the Los Alamos Medical Center operation to which refer-

ence was made in the previous three-year report culminated during the past three years in

two major changes, on the basis of which the community services being provided under the
Medical Center contract have now been stabilized.

The first of the changes to be realized was the move, during the first week of January
in 1952, from the old wooden, Army-type structures in wh’ -h the Center formerly was
housed to the new Medical Center building, expressly designed to meet the needs of the Los
Alamos community for hospital facilities and for physicians' and dentists" offices.
The upper floors of the new building provide a normal complement of 84 hospital beds
and 20 bassinets, with four solaria equipped for immediate conversion to five-bed wards to
supplement the facilities in the surgical and medical hospital floors. A completely modern
surgery is included, as are delivery rooms and an obstetrical floor, On the main floor of
the building are the usual hospital out-patient departments (clinical laboratory, radiology
department, physiotherapy department, pharmacy); suites for doctors and dentists; offices
of the community Health and Sanitation department (not a part of the Medical Center organi- —
zation); examining-rooms used in the industrial-health program of the Los Alamos Scientific
Laboratory; and the business and administrative offices of the Medical Center, The physicians' suites include offices and examining- and treatment-rooms, arranged to group together the services provided in each of the major fields of medical practice, namely, internal
medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, pediatrics, surgery, and Perea nose at practice.
A ay
The second change, for which much exploratory work was done by the Medical Center's
Board of Trustees during the first half of this three-year period, was consummated during
the Spring and Summer of 1952, when the transition from salaried professional practice to

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