Scrooge, Mr. Potter, and DMH

Today is Christmas Eve, and many of you are preparing to celebrate the season with family and friends. Too bad DMH employees can't celebrate as much as they might have.

In Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" Ebenezer Scrooge hoards money and takes away all of Jacob Marley's possessions when he dies. In Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" Mr. Potter intentionally keeps money that belongs to George Bailey's building and loan and then tries to get George Bailey arrested. Unknown to many, the same thing is happening at Decatur Memorial Hospital.

DMH employees have seen quite a few changes over the past year or two. Nursing positions vacated aren't being filled, forcing those left behind to try to manage more patients with fewer personell. Benefits have been cut, with many DMH employees not able to make ends meet with the sub-standard medical insurance options they are provided. One employee recently said that Ken Smithmier blamed high usage of medical services for the abscence of employee Christmas bonuses. Does this mean that DMH will pay out Christmas bonuses if employees don't use their health insurance? In other words, if DMH employees want a Christmas bonus, they have to sacrifice their health in order to do so.

You might think that times are tough everywhere, and that DMH's predicament is par for the course in the healthcare field. To some degree that may be right, but what about DMH administration? Are they likewise suffering during this time?

Over the past several years, the "profit" made by DMH has actually steadily increased, at least according to the published tax records. I'm sure DMH's "creative accounting" liquidates any "extra" money to various places so that they retain their non-profit status. One area that has seen a tremendous increase in funding is DMH Administration salaries!!

According to www.guidestar.org, DMH's form 990 (their corporate non-profit tax return) over the past several years has been very confusing to understand (they haven't been losing money!) The 2002 990 showed DMH showed a profit of just over $7.9 million dollars. 2003: also showed a PROFIT of over $7.9 million. 2004: showed a PROFIT of $10.6 million. The most recent fiscal year (2005) showed a PROFIT of over $14.8 million!

Now, what is even more interesting, is that all the while DMH employees are getting their benefits cut, forced to do more work with less people (not something you want to do in healthcare,) and told by DMH administration that "there isn't any money," DMH's administrators' salaries have been going UP!!!

KEN SMITHMIER:

2002--428,356
2003--400,136
2004--595,701
2005--691,744

GARY PEACOCK

2002--245,163
2003--213,802
2004--332,397
2005--357,221

TIM STONE

2002--267,247
2003--285,063
2004--358,730
2005--405,427

MICHAEL ZIA

2002--219,852
2003--203,953
2004--266,212
2005--276,902

LINDA FAHEY

2002--168,385
2003--153,326
2004--216,310
2005--224,936

How do these salaries compare with other area hospitals? Check out www.guidestar.org for details, but on average, DMH administrators make 50-100% MORE than Carle, Memorial Medical Center, St. John's, or BroMenn administrators! These hospitals also generage much more revenue than DMH as well!!

DMH administration is crying poor-mouth, cutting benefits to employees, not hiring needed workers, and blaming the loss of year-end bonuses on employees' usage of healthcare dollars...all the while their salaries keep going up up up up! (Not to mention the gross overpayment of some of their employed doctors!! Some of these docs are getting two to three times the national average for their specialty!! See the form 990s from DMH on www.guidestar.org)

Scrooge and Mr. Potter have nothing on these people...

Merry Christmas Decatur