Several hospital and health system chief executive officers in Allegheny County saw healthy increases in compensation during fiscal 2005, but median pay here only was slightly higher than national figures.

	Graphic: Hospital CEO compensation, 2004-05

The median pay for CEOs in Allegheny County was $395,890, compared with national medians of $388,500 for CEOs at free-standing hospitals and $308,200 for CEOs of hospitals in larger health systems, said Jim Freundt, a compensation expert with Sullivan, Cotter in Chicago.

"I'm not terribly concerned" by the local numbers, Mr. Freundt said. "Not yet, anyway."

Median pay is a better way of evaluating compensation in Allegheny County, Mr. Freundt said, because the average here is skewed by pay for Jeffrey Romoff, the CEO of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. During fiscal 2005, Mr. Romoff earned $2.88 million in compensation, or more than one-fourth of the $10.26 million earned collectively by CEOs at the 17 hospitals and two health systems in Allegheny County that reported salary information.

Executive compensation at nonprofit hospitals has become a lightning rod issue, with some in Congress questioning whether generous pay at the top jeopardizes the nonprofit status of hospitals. Hospital boards increasingly are concerned about the symbolism of awarding big pay increases to CEOs at a time of runaway health-care inflation, Mr. Freundt said.

Even so, the pay received by the local CEOs is relatively small considering the total expenses of their hospitals. The 17 hospitals had total operating expenses during fiscal 2005 of $4.32 billion, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, meaning CEO pay accounted for less than one quarter of one percent.

And pay for the hospital chiefs is but a fraction of that earned by the Fortunate 50 -- the highest-paid chief executives at publicly-traded companies in Pittsburgh as ranked by the Post-Gazette.

The median CEO salary and bonuses for those executives was $1.6 million last year, while the average fell 5 percent to $1.8 million.

Everything is relative, of course. The average wage for a worker in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area was about $35,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Salary information comes from IRS filings that are made every year by hospitals, most of which provided their documents this month. Ohio Valley General Hospital in Kennedy does not list a salary for CEO William Provenzano.

Among the CEOs who saw pay increases in fiscal 2005, James Collins led the way at West Penn Hospital, where his compensation jumped by a little more than 50 percent from $360,466 to $542,398. Three other CEOs in the West Penn Allegheny Health System saw their compensation jump by at least 35 percent.

"Last year we conducted a compensation study ... and our salaries are in line with industry standards," West Penn spokesman Tom Chakurda said. Fiscal 2005 was the first year in which West Penn Allegheny posted a profit, but Mr. Chakurda declined to say whether the financial results were a factor in the compensation gains.

Norman Mitry, the chief executive officer of both Sewickley Valley Hospital and its parent, Heritage Valley Health System, saw his pay increase by 43.52 percent, the second largest increase, from $308,699 to $443,030.

But Mr. Mitry noted that for several years he didn't take a raise. He added that his compensation for fiscal 2006 will be less than $400,000.