[A] mental health advocate plans to challenge health care regulators on Wednesday to impose a one-year freeze on salaries of hospital administrators making more than $500,000 a year.
Ken Libertoff, former director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, said the Green Mountain Care Board has engaged in a “dereliction of duty” by refusing to review executive compensation since the board started in 2011.
The board approves total hospital budget amounts, among many other regulatory oversight roles. Last year, care board chair Kevin Mullin said it would be inappropriate to review executive salaries; however, he has spoken in favor of disclosing the amounts.
According to figures the hospitals supplied to the board, there are 53 hospital employees who make more than $500,000 per year. That figure includes both administrators and surgeons at the state’s 14 hospitals.
As of fiscal year 2015, the most recent available hospital filings, 21 hospital executives made more than $500,000 annually. University of Vermont Medical Center had the most executives in that range, with 12, and has eight of the 10 highest paid hospital executives in the state. Rutland Regional Medical Center was second in executives making over $500,000, with five.
The highest paid Vermont hospital administrator is John Brumsted, chief executive of UVM Medical Center and UVM Health Network, at more than $2 million in compensation. Dr. Melbourne Boynton, an orthopedic surgeon and the medical director at Rutland Regional, makes more than $1 million, while former Rutland CEO Tom Huebner made $560,000 in 2016.
Faced with criticism over its top salaries, UVMMC says that it offers competitive salaries, which is necessary to attract executives capable of overseeing the state’s largest medical network.
Libertoff will petition the board to study how the increases in administrative pay compare to salary increases for other hospital staff, including nurses. Libertoff said his effort is separate from and predates the recent labor dispute between the UVMMC nurses union and the state’s largest hospital.
“It’s more symbolic than a money saver,” said Libertoff on Tuesday. “The trend in increases is so exorbitant, though, it might have an impact.”
The board’s hands-off approach to reviewing and regulating specific salaries, Libertoff said, has resulted in “an exorbitant administrative salary structure in Vermont that is excessive.”
Libertoff is seeking a comparison study for the past five years, with the findings used by the board in “providing guidance to our hospital system as it relates to administrative salaries.”
“It’ll take a lot of gumption” for the board to tackle the issue, said Libertoff, who has frequently criticized executive pay, but the rising costs of health care in Vermont are “unsustainable.”
