I live in WA and work at a small rural hospital that is a part of a public hospital district. Our Board of Commissioners (BOC) provides oversight on big decisions and hiring the CEO.
Like many small hospitals, ours has been one that has been financially suffering. But our money troubles have been going on for quite some time. I'll spare a lot of the history, but I have been there for two CEOs.
The first one was known for being a tyrant and prioritizing aesthetics rather than patient care – she started the process of the economic downfall. The BOC hired her despite her having run another hospital into the ground in FL.
The CFO at the time ended up being promoted as interim CEO in 2019. The BOC learned their lesson from the previous CEO, because when they hired her, they did so under a 5 year contract. So when they fired (“retired”) her, they had to buy her out of what was left of her contract. It was stupid expensive and the community was NOT happy about this.
Interim CEO did fairly okay in 2019 and was beginning to change the work culture environment. He was actually present in departments and learning the roles of different members to know what a job was like, even shadowing folks who wanted him to see what their job entailed. Management started changing there seemed to be less toxicity. 2020 he was made the CEO but was still doing some CFO roles.
The hospital was hemorrhaging so much money in 2020. They went through layoffs and turned it into a pretty term of “reduction in force.” Even before the vaccine mandates, a lot of departments were short staffed. We didn't lose very many staff to that regard. 2021 was better, but still in a place where we maybe only had 4-10 days cash on hand.
Fast forward to 2022 we're still in the hole and have debts coming up that have to be paid. An interim CFO was hired to basically do an audit and help us come out of that debt. Four members of the administration got together and placed a vote of no confidence towards the CEO, COO, and the hospital attorney. The day the CEO comes back from his vacation, guess what happens? The four members who placed the vote of no confidence were fired. But, dont worry, it wasn't retaliation. Their positions were “eliminated to save money.” Whats hilarious about that is that one of the positions “eliminated” was the Chief Nursing Officer, which is a position required to be filled for our accreditation.
In a two week period, there was an internal employee forum where what was left of the C-suite basically got eaten alive by staff. A lot of us called them out on their bullshit. There was also a BOC meeting which is open to the public. Some numbers had already been gone over, but it was much more detailed in that meeting.
Remember that interim CFO who conducted the audit? Well it was revealed that when he received all of the financials, he couldn't even make sense of it at the beginning because he didn't get all of the needed info to do his job. Remember the CEO was also acting as partial CFO which meant those were all his errors. Many things were not calculated correctly. In the end the daily operations are about 45k when we're only making 30k daily.
Here's where things get spicy. The hospital asked to raise the tax levy in November 2021. It was placed on the ballot and ultimately passed. The levy was advertised for the purpose of retaining current staff so that every employee was paid a liveable wage, recruiting more providers, and improving our tech and communications systems. That money doesn't come in until the start of the 2nd quarter.
Anybody want to guess what they want to do with the funds of that levy now?
They're going to use the levy funds to pay the hospital debts. Not for what was advertised to the community. It's STILL on our website. I've tried to look up to see if it's illegal to do that or just sleazy. Much like when someone runs on certain values for votes but then changes their direction once they get into office.
At the conclusion of the BOC meeting, they voted to terminate the CEO. The BOC is now responsible for finding a new CEO. Our local paper just revealed last week how they're going to do this:
They are choosing to hire management services firm to provide an interim CEO and CFO. It's not final, but a hospital attorney (mind you, not even ours) is going to look over the final contract before the BOC votes on it. Under the proposal:
-Fee is 350k a year for 5 years. But the hospital can opt put after 3.
-The interim CEO will be paid 370k a year. PLUS
-The iCEO will be compensated for travel and meals ad he plans to travel home every two weeks.
It was also revealed that the iCEO was a CEO at a hospital in another state about our size. Before he resigned, that hospital ended up not being able to pay their employees, close their ER, and had their electric power cut off.
Apparently the BOC has learned N O T H I N G.
Now, in all of this, I am fortunate enough to have an incredible manager. She's not the problem. It's way above her. And apparently the BOC has now taken off its mask and revealed themselves to be the main villain in this story. Since their voted into their position by the public, they can't just be fired – and their terms are SIX years.
This whole thing has just been maddening.