NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors formally requested financial information from Natchez Regional Medical Center Monday the board says will help it make a more informed decision about selling the hospital.

The request, which Supervisor David Carter made in the form of a motion, came before a nearly hour-long closed-door meeting the supervisors had with hospital attorney Walter Brown and NRMC Board of Trustees president Leroy White. County Attorney Scott Slover said the meeting was a strategy session regarding the sale.

Carter said he did not feel the supervisors could make an “educated decision” about the sale of the county-owned hospital without knowing its current financial situation.

The total value of the hospital, its assets, liabilities and cash on hand is information the supervisors need to make the best decision.

Carter, Supervisor Calvin Butler and Supervisor Mike Lazarus have expressed apprehension about making a decision on the sale without a clear picture of the hospital’s finances.

“It’s hard to make informed decisions when you don’t have that information,” Carter said.

Slover said he would check with each supervisor to make sure the financial information they want is included in a written request to the hospital.

The hospital sale process started approximately six months ago, but Slover said he believes the supervisors are now taking a more proactive approach to evaluating the sale.

The supervisors met last week with hospital officials and negotiator Scott Phillips, who the supervisors hired to help sell the hospital.

The officials told Phillips to take a counter-offer to the bidder for Natchez Regional Medical Center.

The goals of the negotiations are to find a buyer who has the capital to build a new hospital facility, pay off the bond on the county-owned facility and ensure the buyer has a commitment to develop the medical community to guarantee the long-term viability of health care in Adams County, Phillips has said.

The effort to sell the hospital began in July, when — at the county’s behest — The Horne Group released a feasibility study recommending the hospital be sold, based in part on studies of patient outmigration to other, regional health care systems outside the Miss-Lou.

Since then, hospital trustees and administrators have argued that an independent, rural hospital will not likely be able to continue operations as the costs and logistics of implementing the Affordable Care Act come into play.

Selling the hospital will also help recruit needed physicians to the area if the hospital is part of a wider health care network, administrators have said. A commitment to bring more doctors to Natchez is one of the negotiating points of the sale.

The initial stages of the sale have been limited to a so-called stalking horse process, in which a limited pool of bidders make an offer for the hospital.

When the stalking horse bid is awarded, the hospital will then be placed on the open market with the stalking horse’s bid considered the base price. If no one else bids on the hospital, the stalking horse will become the ultimate buyer.

Before the hospital is placed on the market, the board will have to advertise its sale for a month, and during that period residents have the ability to petition for a referendum on the matter. The petition would require 1,500 signatures.

Phillips led NRMC in 2008, when the hospital was in bankruptcy. A move to sell the facility at that time was unsuccessful.

NRMC opened in 1960 as Jefferson Davis Memorial Hospital. Its $2.4 million construction was underwritten by an $800,000 local contribution and state and federal funds.

It has been financially independent since 1974 and does not receive tax support, but is backed by a 5-mill standby tax that the Mississippi Development Bank required the hospital to get in 2006 when it asked for the MDB to reissue its revenue bond.