Monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for nearly 63 million Americans will increase 1.5 percent in 2014, the Social Security Administration announced Wednesday.
The 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits that more than 57 million Social Security beneficiaries receive in January 2014. Increased payments to more than 8 million SSI beneficiaries will begin on December 31, 2013.
Some other changes that take effect in January of each year are based on the increase in average wages. Based on that increase, the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $117,000 from $113,700. Of the estimated 165 million workers who will pay Social Security taxes in 2014, about 10 million will pay higher taxes as a result of the increase in the taxable maximum. Information about Medicare changes for 2014 is available at www.Medicare.gov.
The Social Security Act provides for how the COLA is calculated. To read more, please visit www.socialsecurity.gov/cola.

DeKalb Community Hospital’s ER Department was recently awarded Health Stream’s ‘Excellence Through Insight’ Award based on most improved patient satisfaction scores in an ER Department for 2012. (DeKalb Community Hospital reached a 99% overall satisfaction rating in 2012)
“We are honored to receive this award and are very proud of the hard work and persistence that our ER Department displayed to earn it,” said Sue Conley-CEO of DeKalb Community and Stones River Hospitals, “Patient satisfaction is very important to our hospital and that translates to quality of patient care from our staff.”
The award was presented at Health Stream’s Annual Summit at the Music City Center in Nashville, TN. Hospital’s from across the nation gathered in our state’s capital to acknowledge and honor recipients including Smithville’s own DeKalb Community Hospital.
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Pictured: Chief Medical Officer Dr. Erik Swensson of Capella Healthcare, ER Director Daniel Goodson and CNO Kim Frazier of DeKalb Community Hospital, Bobby Frist—President and CEO of Health Stream, and Sue Conley-CEO of DeKalb Community and Stones River Hospital.

66 year old Gerald Wayne (J.B.) Bounds will soon be a free man.
Four members of the Tennessee Board of Parole have voted to release Bounds on parole. The decision was announced Monday afternoon.
Bounds has been in prison for 32 years and 8 months in the 1981 fatal shooting of 27 year old Sherman Wright of Smithville. He was tried and convicted of first degree murder later that year by a DeKalb County Circuit Court jury and sentenced to life in prison.
While parole has been granted, it may still be several weeks before Bounds is actually released from prison pending completion of a satisfactory release plan for parole supervision.
According to the Rules of the Tennessee Board of Parole “A grant of parole shall not be deemed to be effective until a certificate of parole has been delivered to the inmate, such inmate has voluntarily signed the certificate and the effective date has been reached.
“When an effective date of parole has been established by the Board, release on such date shall be conditioned upon the continued good conduct of the inmate and the completion of a satisfactory release plan for parole supervision.”
Bounds came up for his fifth parole hearing almost two weeks ago on Wednesday, October 16. The hearing was held at the Southeast Regional Correctional Facility in Pikeville where Bounds is incarcerated.
Two members of the Tennessee Board of Parole present for the hearing took different views on whether Bounds should be paroled. Board member Tim Gobble voted to deny parole for another year due to the seriousness of the offense. Board member Patsy Bruce voted to grant parole.
After the hearing, Bounds’ file was sent to the other members of the Tennessee Board of Parole. They reviewed the case and cast their votes. The voting continued until there were four concurring votes. In this case, four members concurred in granting Bounds parole.

A new open air stage under construction downtown will soon be completed and available to showcase a variety of community entertainment events.
“It’s coming along beautifully,” said Suzanne Williams, Executive Director of the Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce. “We still need to get the cedar shakes on the roof. We’ve still got to get the electricity going and add safety railings and beautiful wide stone steps on the front but we’re getting close. We hope to have a big celebration in the spring to let everybody see it and enjoy it. We’re really looking forward to that,” she said.
The open-air stage, located in Evins’ Park begin the Smithville City Hall, is part of an effort by the Tennessee Downtowns Program Steering Committee to help revitalize downtown, Smithville.
In December, 2010, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced that Smithville was among 12 communities selected to participate in Tennessee Downtowns, a competitive community improvement program for cities and counties seeking to revitalize traditional commercial districts. Smithville was among several Tennessee communities with central business districts at least 50 years old which were eligible to apply for a downtown revitalization package. Mini-grants were also made available to local downtown business owners who wanted to join in the effort.
A total of sixteen Smithville building owners were awarded $500 in mini-grants by the committee for investing a minimum of $1,000 in exterior improvements to their buildings.
“I applied for the Tennessee Downtowns Program and we got accepted into that,” said Williams. “After we went through about a year of being trained and meeting all these different requirements, I was allowed to apply for a $15,000 grant which we got. We used $8,000 of it to do the mini-grants downtown. We had sixteen businesses or property owners that applied and if they made at least $1,000 improvements to the outside of their buildings we gave them $500 back. That went really good. With the $7,000 we had left, we invested in this open air stage which actually has become more beautiful than we imagined,” said Williams.
While the project has benefitted from generous donations, Williams said more money will be needed to finish it. “Gaius Overton, who is married to Mary Evins (daughter of the late Congressman Joe L. Evins), is an architect so he made us two models and didn’t charge us a thing for that. We picked the one we liked and we’ve been working on it ever since. The Smithville Rotary Club gave us an extra $1,000 and Middle Tennessee Natural Gas Project Hometown Help gave us another $1,500. I’ve still got to raise a little bit more money to finish it out,” she said.
“It’ll totally be available for public use. We look forward to having all kinds of art and music events and outdoor concerts once it’s finished,” said Williams.
Members of the Tennessee Downtowns Program Committee are Steve White, chair; Wade Smith, Alan Webb, and Mark Ashburn.