The contracts detailing Ontario hospital executives’ employment agreements, including retirement packages and vacation benefits, were released for the first time Tuesday.
Some of the high-powered health executives in the GTA also get generous severance packages worth more than $1 million, a $75,000 travel allowance for a luxury car lease, and annual $100,000 pension top-ups. In the GTA, seven hospital chief executive officers take home more than $500,000 a year in compensation.
Ontario hospitals became subject to provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act on Jan. 1. Although public servants who earn more than $100,000 a year already have their annual salaries posted on the so-called “sunshine list,” many details listed in hospital executives’ contracts have, until now, not been made public.
The Ontario Hospital Association advised its 151 member hospitals to make some documents, including executives’ compensation, board minutes and financial plans, publicly available to show that the institutions are transparent and accountable to the public, said Tom Closson, the association’s president and CEO.
Some perks revealed in Tuesday’s disclosure, including fitness club and social club memberships and tax services, are no longer part of the executives’ compensation packages.
Health Minister Deb Matthews said in an interview such perks were outlawed by the Liberal government as of last April 1.
“We banned gym memberships. We’ve already taken steps to make sure that some of those little benefits are not included,” said Matthews, adding CEO salaries are currently frozen.
As well, the minister pointed out that the Liberals forced the hospitals to publicly disclose the pay packages for executives and ordered them to cut executives’ office spending by 10 per cent cut over two years.
“Today is about transparency. But from that transparency comes accountability,” she said.
Dr. Robert Howard, president and CEO of St. Michael’s Hospital, receives an annual base salary of $450,000, a year-end supplement worth 17 per cent of his base salary and a 5 per cent pay-for-performance bonus. Howard also receives a $75,000 travel allowance to be used for the purchase or lease of a car, with St. Mike’s paying for gas, car insurance, maintenance fees and a space in the hospital’s lot. In addition, Howard accepted an annual pension top-up of $100,000, which the hospital offered as an incentive for him to stay on as CEO; the payments began April 2009 and will end April 2014.
At the William Osler Health System, which includes three hospitals in Brampton and Etobicoke, president and CEO Matthew Anderson gets a $1,500 taxable monthly automobile allowance, on top of his base salary of $445,000 per year, which could rise to almost $485,000 with performance-related bonuses. Dr. Ian Smith, chief of staff, gets $1,475 for his vehicle on top of his $325,000 base salary and a $215,784 clinical guarantee — the amount he is able to earn outside of his chief of staff duties.
The other five executives receive $945 for their cars — all on top of complimentary parking at Osler sites.
The monthly allowance covers “gas, insurance, and wear and tear on their vehicle,” according to spokeswoman Lorraine Lynch, who added that if they charged mileage it would be 40 cents per kilometre.
“They do a lot of driving between the hospital sites as well as attending meetings with their peers across the province,” she said.
Dr. Robert Bell, head of the University Health Network, which comprises Toronto General Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, took home $753,992 in 2010. According to his contract, Bell receives a minimum of $580,000 in base salary, a pay-for-performance bonus of up to 30 per cent of his annual salary and a car allowance of $700 per month. University Health Network pays the car’s operating costs and insurance.
At Mount Sinai Hospital, CEO Joseph Mapa earns $525,805 a year, plus an incentive compensative worth 30 per cent and a performance bonus of up to $20,000. In 2010, Mapa took home a total of $689,025 in compensation.
Incentives for Mapa’s performance pay, outlined in his contract, include hospital compliance with hand hygiene, length of stay in the emergency department and average electricity usage. As of August 2011, when the Broader Public Sector Perquisites Directive came into effect for hospitals, Mount Sinai discontinued his annual car allowance and monthly parking pass.
At Queen’s Park, Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) emphasized it’s all right to pay hospital executives well as long as they are providing good value for money.
“I’m less concerned about the package and perks that create the CEO’s salary than I am the justification of that salary by the actions that a CEO takes,” said Shurman.
“So I don’t really care if a guy gets $500,000 a year to do his job if he’s saving me $10 million by his actions,” he said.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath said the salary disclosure proves public sector CEO salaries should be capped at $418,000 a year — twice what the premier earns.
“It is all on the health-care dime, all on the public dime,” she told reporters. “I have a health membership; I pay for it out of my very generous salary that I receive as an MPP and the leader of my political party. It is time we start being much more careful with taxpayer dollars.”
Health dollars should be invested in front-line care and not in extra benefits, she said.
“I find it interesting the top CEOs continue to have their salaries climb while we watch emergency wards close, we watch nurses be laid off and we watch people wait longer and longer in emergency wards for care. The only people we should see waiting in hospitals are the CEOs for their next raises, not people waiting for care.”
Closson of the Ontario Hospital Association, or OHA, cited a report released in November that found Ontario hospital CEOs are fairly compensated. The report was prepared for the OHA by an independent expert panel led by former deputy prime minister John Manley.
After comparing the hospital sector to the private sector, the report found that for similar size organizations almost all Ontario hospital CEOs are paid under the 25th percentile, Closson said.
“In other words, if you have a $100 million hospital in terms of revenues, and you compare it to a private sector organization of similar size, 75 per cent of the private sector companies would be paying their CEOs more than what a hospital CEO would get.”
The report provided recommendations for the OHA to develop a framework that would help hospitals calculate appropriate compensation for their CEOs, taking into consideration revenues, number of hospital sites and the amount of teaching and research that takes place at the institution.
Closson said work on the framework has started and that the guidelines will be published by the end of March.
Original Article
Source: Star
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