By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- There is still no word on which health systems Massena Memorial Hospital plans to send letters of intent to affiliate.

At Monday’s Board of Managers meeting, Wolleben said the board would discuss drafts of the letters in executive session, but he wasn’t ready to publicly say who they’re sending them to.

“We’re at developing terms and a draft affiliation agreement,” he told the board. “We’ve actually got a draft that’s in progress and we’re hopefully close to something you’ll all feel comfortable with.”

He said the letter is being written with input from both the board and medical staff.

They are eyeing two larger health systems, but Wolleben has not identified them beyond saying one is in the eastern part of New York and one is in the western part of the state.

“They’re both bigger than us,” he said.

At February’s town board meeting, Wolleben said he was hoping the board would be ready to name the potential affiliate the following week, but it didn’t happen.

In addition to the affiliation process, MMH officials are waiting for the IRS to reply to their application to become a private, non-profit entity. They are now one of two municipal hospitals in the state. He said those types of applications are handled in either 30 days or six months, and it’s been more than 30 days with no word.

“We are in the six month bucket,” Wolleben said at the meeting. “Nothing is going to happen here until October at the earliest.”

The hospital and the town are also hashing out an asset transfer agreement, which will sort out who gets which assets and liabilities when the two eventually severe ties.

“There have been multiple conversations … additional data requests … we continue to talk about information with the goal of giving the town as much information as they need,” Wolleben said. “We’re not likely to hear much more on this for another month or two.”