TOP HOSPITAL SALARY DISCLOSURE SOUGHT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 31, 1992                   TAG: 9201310271
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
TOP HOSPITAL SALARY DISCLOSURE SOUGHT
Gov. Douglas Wilder said Thursday that he plans to submit legislation to require public disclosure of how much executives are paid at Virginia's non-profit hospitals and health-care organizations.
He made the announcement and released a list of salaries of top executives at nine non-profit health organizations around the state.
"Taxpayers are footing over half the bill for their salaries," Wilder said. "The public has a right to know where its money is going, to whom and for what."
State employees compiled the figures this week from 1990 federal tax data obtained from the Internal Revenue Service Form 990.
For example, the non-profit Inova Health System, which operates Fairfax Hospital and several other Northern Virginia facilities, reported 1990 compensation packages for 19 top executives ranging from $119,235 for a vice president to $394,898 for the president, Wilder said.
Carilion Health System, which operates six non-profit hospitals in Southwest Virginia, was not on Wilder's list. The top salaries at the three largest Carilion hospitals are: Thomas Robertson, chief executive officer of Roanoke Memorial, $218,000; Houston Bell, chief operating officer of Roanoke Memorial, $152,000; William Reid, president of Community Hospital, $153,063; Thomas McCallie, vice president of Community, $76,648; Lester Lamb, president of Radford Community, $142,916; and William Merkt, executive vice president of Radford Community, $99,480.
Others on Wilder's sampling of hospitals included Alexandria Hospital, whose president earned $133,945; Lynchburg's Centra Health, whose president earned $239,309; Fredericksburg's Mary Washington Hospital, whose president earned $129,666, and Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge, whose executive vice president earned $145,503.
"If non-profit hospitals can afford these kinds of compensation packages . . . can you imagine the total compensation paid to executives of for-profit hospitals?" Wilder said.
Lloyd DeBoer, chairman of the board of trustees at Fairfax-based Inova, sent a letter Thursday morning to Wilder. He wrote that compensation paid to Inova's president "is similar to that found at high-quality institutions such as Johns Hopkins Health System," which runs the Baltimore-based teaching hospital.
Staff writer Charles Hite contributed to this story.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB