Executive compensation

[dzadzey]

I work for a large NON PROFIT healthcare system. In 2004, the CEO of the system received some $1.4 million in salary, which is the most recent figure I can document. Taking inflation into account, his 2009 salary would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.7 million, which doesn't take into account any bonuses or raises he may have received in the last 5 years.

My question is this...How can such a compensation package for the CEO of a non-profit be justified? If the salary was an even $1,000,000, how many new monitors could have been acquired for the critical care units? How much more robust could the dare-care program for the children of employees have been? How many more techs and unit clerks could have been employed?

Just askin'.

[David13, MSN, RN]

thankfully your opinion doesn't matter. and i can guarantee you have no clue what the ceo does or what their job entails. lets talk proportions. how about we take from you the same percentage of income taxes the ceo pays after all that is fair. an no it is not your business what someone else makes. just be thankful you have a job because of the ceo running the hospital. if you don't like the money the ceo makes i suggest you quit your job and find a hospital more to your liking.

i would venture to say it is more likely that many of us have a job in spite of many an executive and not because of them. may i ask how you can "guarantee" that i "have no clue what the ceo does or what their job entails"? and may i also ask how you are so sure that my job is in a hospital or even what my job might be?

to write that my "opinion doesn't matter" defies reason. my opinion does matter, as does your opinion, and as does the opinion of everyone who posts on this site. and in my opinion, when a single person is compensated so disproportionately in comparison to the rest of those in the organization, it is everyone's business as to why this is the case. to simply accept the very significant amount of an organization's money that is being diverted to any single person as perhaps just the ways things are is, again in my opinion, inconceivable. i will continue, to the best of my ability, to question and to inform and to champion for a responsible health care system. this includes questioning executive compensation.

[dzadzey, MSN, RN]

Just an addendum to my reply to CRNA2007...The President of the United States recieves an annual salary of $400,000. He also receives $100,000 non-taxable travel expenses, a $50,000 expense account and $19,000 for entertainment.

Tell me, please, do the responsibilities of the CEO of health care systems, or any corporation in general rival those of the POTUS? I think not.

Consider yourself pwned.

[RN1980]

lets look at my hospitals ceo,cfo,and coo. all three of them are accountants. nothing anymore special than that. anytime they need to make a big decision they hire consultants in pay them a few 100k and then base their choices on the consultants recs. they never make difficult decisions on their own, the joke in the hospital is whenever you see a bunch of new faces wlking around with consultant visitor badges on means the administrators cant or to chicken to decide anything.

[RN1980]

since when did a bean counting ceo make a split second decision that the results could determine life,sight or limb. every big decision made in a hospital is made by committie anyway.

[noc4senuf]

Our non-profit was affected by the economic times over a year ago. This resulted in those of us in management taking a 5% cut in pay (we still have not gotten it back), this included the CEO. The people who did not get cut were the nurses, aides, dietary, maintenance, etc. We needed to make sure we stayed competitive with the market.