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The El Camino Hospital board of directors said their goodbyes to hospital president and CEO Tomi Ryba Wednesday night, approving a severance agreement that guarantees as much as $834,200 in payments to her over the next year.
In late August, the board voted 7-0 not to renew Ryba’s contract. Though both the board and Ryba, who has led the hospital since August 2011, were “in agreement” with the decision, according to a statement by the hospital, it’s not clear why the board decided to seek new leadership.
The board began the search for a new CEO in August, and picked Donald Sibery, a longtime executive of health care organizations and consultant groups from Traverse City, Mich., to head the hospital as the interim CEO last month.
Ryba won’t be leaving empty-handed. In addition to awarding her $223,673 in bonus “incentive” pay for her performance in the 2015-16 fiscal year, the board unanimously approved a severance package at the Oct. 12 board meeting that grants Ryba up to $834,200 over the next 12 months. The severance payments are based on her original contract, which states that she is entitled to between 12 and 24 months of her salary if the board elects not to renew or extend her contract.
Ryba is guaranteed the first six months of her severance payment, or $417,100; payment for the last six months is subject to “reductions for other income.” In other words, if Ryba picks up a new job during the second half of the 12-month period, any new income she earns will be deducted from the severance payment — terms spelled out in her original contract agreement.
Ryba’s original contract includes several lengthy clauses that determine how much the hospital owes her in the severance agreement. It states that she is entitled to 12 months of severance payments “during any successive renewal or extended term” of the original 2011 contract. The contract was automatically extended in 2015, according to hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Thrift.
Prior to the vote, Ryba thanked board members for their “unwavering” support for her over the last five years, and hailed their ability to work as a team to transform the hospital’s governance structure, consistently beat financial goals and grow clinical programs. During her tenure, Ryba said, she was able to guide the launch of a new electronic medical records system from start to finish, and set in place $1.1 billion plans to revamp the hospital’s El Camino Hospital campus.
“I had the good fortune to help shift the culture, through genuine relationships, open communication, accessibility and transparency,” Ryba said.
While some El Camino Healthcare District residents spoke highly of Ryba and thanked her for her work at the hospital, the Wednesday meeting was well-attended by nursing staff protesting what they called a hospital culture and philosophy that awards executives and cuts costs everywhere else. The nurses’ union and the hospital have been tangled in contract disputes since last March, and the union membership recently voted against a tentative agreement between both parties.
Catherine Walke, a critical care nurse at the Los Gatos campus, told board members that executive compensation is all about improving perks designed to attract and retain the best candidate for the job while nurses are expected to accept cuts across the board. She called it a problem of “internal equity,” and said nurses shouldn’t have to face less support from the hospital when they are providing “exceptional nursing care in an environment that asks for more.”
“Many El Camino Hospital nurses feel devalued, demoralized and insulted,” she said.
Before addressing the board, Ryba turned to the nursing staff in the crowd and said she has “deep gratitude” for their work and assured them that they will find a way to agree on a contract that works for everyone.
$800K = salary of 8 nurses
Nurses who actually do really work- not BS their way through work
Golden Parachute? Definitely!!
There is so much wrong here on so many levels. It makes my blood boil.
What part of “unwavering support, “”open communication,” and “transparency” explains why the board refused to give a reason for her termination? Sounds like the culture of the nursing staff had a shift alright, a sharp turn for the worse.
How do people like this sleep at night? Receiving a year’s worth of pay for not working, while knowing how many children and adults have no health coverage at all?
People, you can thank your local Union, they negotiate wages in the back rooms. Just think how massive the pension and medical plans are going to cost the state. Why do you think all govt agencies are looking to increase there funds coming in. It’s not because of inflation, but Union contracts that will ruin this state.
Down with all Unions!!!!!! Communist socialists, that have no idea what free market is, only thing they know is how to increase there dues to support ignorant social democrats that they control.
At least have surgeons match the salary that of the CEO of the hospital. They do the most precision-based pressured work.
If you blame the unions, your info is old and outdated. CEOs get their power through their personal connections with board members, not through unions. Unions are there to protect the regular folks. Here’s an example: recent news article about a union that is trying to cap hospital CEO salaries and perks by taking it to the polls. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-1463768255-htmlstory.html
The last local “recent news article” re capping hospital CEO salaries was right here in Mountain View, when SEIU-UHW created a city ballot initiative to reduce this same CEO’s pay. After its contract negotiations concluded successfully, the union abandoned its own ballot measure. A union steward admitted later “Truthfully, the measure was initially proposed as a bargaining chip in the negotiating process. We picked salaries because it was something that resonated with voters.” (The union then distanced itself from such frankness.) http://mv-voice.com/news/2012/11/08/measure-m-a-union-bargaining-chip Yet, although the very union that wrote it abandoned Measure M once its purpose had been served, not enough voters got the word; Measure M passed anyway (later struck down in county court as unconstitutional).
That was all after the union-decertification controversy (following a barely successful, controversially staged “closed-shop” vote making SEIU membership mandatory for many employees). Over 30% of the hospital’s SEIU-UHW employees wrote in late 2011 that they “no longer desire to be represented by SEIU.” One of them remarked ‘”What am I getting for my money? . . . I’m getting absolutely zero.” [he] said he has been with the hospital for 25 years — long before the union “forced” its way in about 10 years ago. Not much has changed since then, he said, adding that, as far as he can tell, the only thing the union is interested in is collecting dues.’ Another complained ‘the SEIU has created a “divisive” atmosphere at the hospital — seeking to inspire an “us versus them” attitude at every turn. The union aims to keep its members fearful of the hospital administration, so they will remain loyal and pay their dues on time.’ (The union filed actions seeking to quash this rank-and-file dissent before it could come to vote of the full membership.) http://www.mv-voice.com/news/2011/10/27/battle-brewing-over-el-caminos-union
People who make less than hospital CEOs may *envy* the salary they see; they might promote that envy rhetorically, in Town Square comments, or to marshal support for a union; but armchair comments like “she might have been worth 20% of that number” reveal writers who know nothing about the subject. Nothing. They don’t know what hospital CEOs actually do; they have no idea what the market is like for those skills.
For decades I’ve heard complaints like “that university president couldn’t possibly be worth $XXX,XXX yearly” when, in any objective measure, they are worth it. The price of competent nonprofit CEOs is set by a market; good ones pay for themselves many times over, by fundraising and other skills.
If you want to complain about REAL extravagant expenditures on public employees, look to the infinitely greater sums lavished on public salaries and pension programs (by sweetheart legislative deals), even for highly paid senior workers like district attorneys. All represented by public-employee unions. That’s what most unions in California are about today. Labor unions began as an answer to exploitative “company-town” industrial employment. Today, most California employees are far better treated; the vast majority don’t need unions. The small minority of workers still unionized here tend to be in public-sector, tax-supported jobs. The source of their pay (the ultimate adversary against which employee unions plot their various gambits, support politicians, send their dark-money campaign mailings) is today the taxpayers — you and me.
El Camino’s nurses union, PRN, is an in-house union with no national affiliations. The negotiating team are all working nurses. PRN’s negotiating team have been working on negotiating the new contract since early 2016 while taking care of patients in the ER, Critical Care, Woman’s Health and on the Medical and Surgical Units. Dues are not paid to national or state-wide union. Not all unions are the same!
@UnionsToday – Oh heavens, how dare a union use a ballot measure to bargain for higher wages for their lowly employees and win. The nerve! As for your statement that the CEO’s wages are set by the market, if you knew any corporate board members, you would know that’s not true by a long shot. Here’s the way it works: corporate executives are all on each other’s boards, so if you vote for a sweet deal for this CEO, the CEO will be on your company’s board and vote for a sweet deal for you right back. Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. It’s better than being in a union, the rewards are greater and their exclusive “membership” makes their deals private and harder to critique. It’s not a market, it’s a monopoly on power.
There’s no free market. There’s no level playing field. We’re dismantling the checks and balances on power as quickly as we can. It was not so long ago when our social contract said that the wealthiest leveraged more of the benefits of society, so they were obligated to give more back to society. Our wealthiest citizens fulfilled their obligations by paying a tax rate that was over 90%. Now they pay closer to 10%. Seems to me that if this is the new social contract, our impoverished society won’t be worth living in, especially for the predators.
I think some of those commenting here need to stick to the relevant discussion about the article. This was not about unions, but about someone moving on and getting great rewards going out the door. I think we are rewarding those at the top way too well and not always recognizing that those working under their management are the real valuable people. Nothing will change about executive compensation in our free market society unless every single employer stops giving these great benefits and it would be naive to think that will happen. When our economy totally collapses we will see an end to such lavish compensation, but all the rest of us will be much worse off as well. We live and play like the Romans and our ways will see an end to our wealth and prosperity in the future. This is the way of societies that live beyond the reality of moderation and there are not any countries that are immune to the downfall of their economy. If you ask any great general what got him there he will tell you it is the blood and effort of his troops. The nurses and staff and all employees of El Camino Hospital have made it great no matter who sits around the board room table. The executives come and go, but the employees are there for years and are the constant factor as to how good the hospital will be.
Another over-rated bureaucrat bids adieu at our expense. Over the past few years, the hospital forgave loans and began providing 100% health insurance to the hospital employees. We pay for them with insurance premiums and fees.
CEO compensation spiked in 1999. What caused that to happen? Certainly CEO’s in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s faced the same challenges?
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160625_FBC750.png
CEO-To-Worker Pay Ratio Ballooned 1,000 Percent Since 1950…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/ceo-to-worker-pay-ratio_n_3184623.html
Disgusting!! she might have been worth 20% of that number. Part of the real sickness in our country, called “cashing in”.
Actually the concept of more money entices much better candidates is absurd. What we need to attract is people who have a desire to make a hospital (or University) fulfill it’s function, not people who want to feather their retirement lives at the expense of taxpayers and/or employees. I have a good friend who is President of a company in Germany who can’t believe how “compensation” in the USA is almost totally irrational. Even if you consider an “executive” to be always busy, 5 days a week, that works out in this case to 2080 hours a year @about $385.00 an hour! What is actually being compensated here? Perhaps it is simply a case of unreasonable hope for the more money, the better the result. Not much evidence for that. The length of these noses stuck in the public trogh is is hard to calculate. It is truly an ignorant public that falsely believes that anyone is worth “compensation” at that level.