Fight over health exec pay could hinge on US president salary

Ought to Los Angeles clamp down on how a lot hospital executives are paid?

That call could possibly be put to Los Angeles metropolis voters, below a poll measure supported by a union representing healthcare staff.

However whether or not that occurs could hinge on one other query: How a lot does the president of the US make?

The California Hospital Assn. has gone to court docket to cease a poll measure that will restrict the annual compensation for executives at privately owned hospitals and different Los Angeles well being amenities, arguing that the proposed measure rests on an announcement that’s “factually and provably unfaithful.”

The L.A. poll measure, backed by SEIU-United Healthcare Staff West, would set the annual restrict for healthcare executives at “the full compensation for the President of the US,” which it lists as “at the moment $450,000.” That greenback restrict for healthcare executives would come with their salaries, bonuses and a variety of different advantages and funds, together with severance.

The hospital affiliation argued that the president is entitled to different funds and advantages, together with journey bills, discretionary funds and residence within the White Home, that deliver his annual compensation nicely over $450,000. Because of this, it argued in its lawsuit, the L.A. petition contained “calculated untruths” that misled voters who have been requested to signal it.

“California legislation is obvious that voters can’t be lied to or misled when offered an initiative petition to signal,” mentioned Jan Emerson-Shea, vp of exterior affairs for the California Hospital Assn., calling the petition “clearly false.”

The hospital affiliation is looking for the courts to dam the initiative from being adopted or showing on the poll.

Backers of the initiative are preventing the authorized problem, as is town itself. The lawsuit is “nothing greater than a thinly-veiled pre-election assault on the substance of the initiative itself — an motion that’s strongly disfavored by the courts,” attorneys representing its proponents wrote.

A federal code titled “Compensation of the President” states that the president is paid $400,000 yearly and has a $50,000 expense allowance.

However the hospital affiliation cited calculations by a guide who concluded that the full quantity, utilizing the identical definition of “coated compensation” that the initiative units ahead for L.A. healthcare executives, exceeds $1.2 million.

That quantity consists of a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} in annual fee for former presidents after their phrases, because the L.A. measure says that compensation for well being executives consists of “post-employment preparations,” the guide wrote. It additionally depends on a calculation for a way a lot expense accounts and housing which might be exempt from taxes would should be scaled up in the event that they have been taxable, as can be the case for hospital executives getting related advantages in Los Angeles, the guide mentioned in a authorized declaration.

Backers of the poll measure derided that as a “tortured clarification” and known as such arguments “wholly irrelevant purple herrings” in a court docket submitting, saying that the definition of compensation within the poll measure utilized to the well being care executives, to not the U.S. president.

In addition they argued that the petition clearly said that healthcare executives would have their compensation restricted to an quantity at the moment set at $450,000.

If the hospital affiliation desires to argue that the U.S. president is definitely compensated with greater than $450,000 yearly, “that’s an argument greatest made to the voters of their efforts to oppose the initiative; it isn’t a correct foundation on which to try to shortcut the initiative course of,” their attorneys wrote.

Backers of the poll measure have already turned of their petition and signatures to the Los Angeles metropolis clerk’s workplace, which checks whether or not proposed measures have sufficient legitimate signatures to be positioned on the poll. If the measure meets that requirement, metropolis council members may additionally select to undertake a measure outright as an alternative of sending it to voters.

SEIU-UHW spokesperson Renee Saldaña argued that because it stands, pay for hospital executives is “extreme, pointless and inconsistent with what ought to be hospital programs’ mission of offering high quality and reasonably priced medical care for everybody” and that “paying these executives hundreds of thousands is absolutely indicating the incorrect priorities.”

Saldaña identified that hospital teams have pushed to stop $25-an-hour wage measures for a variety of staff at personal hospitals from being adopted outright by cities in Los Angeles County, as an alternative arguing they need to go to the poll. An L.A. wage measure championed by SEIU-UHW has been placed on maintain after hospital teams efficiently pushed for a referendum.

If the hospital affiliation believes that such wage measures ought to as an alternative be determined by voters, “it’s an applicable time that voters additionally weigh in on the salaries of the best paid people,” Saldaña mentioned.

The proposed measure would cap government compensation for a variety of prime officers, together with CEOs, chief monetary officers, government vice presidents and directors, at privately owned hospitals and their affiliated clinics, expert nursing amenities and residential amenities for the aged positioned within the metropolis of Los Angeles.

Emerson-Shea known as the proposal an “abuse of the initiative system” by the union. “This measure will damage the flexibility of hospitals to recruit certified leaders, at a time when hospitals are going through actual challenges, with no advantages to shoppers or staff,” she mentioned in an announcement.

A court docket listening to is scheduled for Tuesday.