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
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
posted by Watcher2300 at 12/24/2006 03:10:00 PM
6 Comments:
Wow!! That may be the most interesting thing that you have ever posted on this blog that was backed up by facts not merely opinion. These administrators are paid extremely well compared to their peers in other communities in central Illinois. It must be nice to be a DMH employed physician as well. I looked at comparable info from other hospitals. No wonder Prarie Heart loves Decatur and St Mary's- I would to if someone paid me 5.2 million per year. Do I want to be a DMH employed physician or a Prarie doc at St Mary's when I grow up- either way it won't be enough and I'll whine that I am barely putting food on the table. Also interesting is how few people at DMH make over 50k /year - with a $1100/person deductible that eats up a lot of one's income.
Very little of what I have posted is opinion. Ken Smithmier and co. are good at hiding things (until the FBI investigation that is.)
I find it rather odd the DMH board actually approved these salaries while the hospital is in "such financial problems" as Ken Smithmier has been saying to his employees.
This looks so much like ENRON it's not even funny.
I hope the FBI looks into their "creative accounting" as well as their Stark Law violations/Medicare fraud/Medicaid fraud.
I went to GuideStar and obtained a password. How do you access hte salaries...Administrators, Prairie Heart, Employed docs without paying a subscription?
The salaries posted are contained in the 990s. They are PDF files which are opened with Adobe Acrobat.
Search for Decatur Memorial Hospital, then select the year you want to explore. Then tab down the document and you will find all that you want to know.
In my next life, I want to be either a DMH administrator or DMH physician. I certainly don't want to be any other kind of employee at DMH. Can't afford to, since they are taking away benefits like the big $125 Wellness dollars! Wow, $125 per employee if they all took part in the program. That would certainly cut into administrators salaries and bonuses, and we know they won't stand for that. And that was just one of the smaller benefits DMH has taken away from employees.
Wonder how much Ken Smithmier pays for his insurance? I'm betting he gets it from another insurer rather than the DMH insurance. Or else it is part of his benefit package.
No bonuses for DMH employees since they are losing so much money, yet administrative salaries and bonuses keep going up each year.
Meanwhile rank and file employees aren't even getting raises that keep pace with inflation. Now their raises are based on "performance." Nothing wrong with that except managers are deliberately giving poor evaluations this year to employees so they can't get the maximum raise (a whopping 3.5%). Just another way to fill the coffers of DMH. Interesting thing is, smart employees have made copies of their past evaluations, so it is glaringly apparent what is going on. You can't have great evaluations for years and suddenly get a poor one for doing the same job. This has happened to many employees already this year and it is just the middle of January.
Anyone see the DMH ad in the employment section of Sunday's paper? It took up over half a page (full color of course) and listed tons of unfilled positions. Some of these positions have been open for months. Is it possible that qualified potential employees are finally looking elsewhere and discovering that they can be paid more for the same work almost anywhere else? It is getting to the point where it is worth driving to Champaign, Springfield, Bloomington and make more even factoring in mileage, time on the road, gas prices, etc.
Many other experienced nurses are leaving DMH and going to nursing homes to get better pay and benefits. Something is very wrong with this picture.
Bottom line: administrators and DMH doctors get richer, the people who actually provide the care for your wife or husband struggle to make ends meet, and no one does anything about it.
DMH owns the Herald and Review, WAND, and other local media. That is why you have to get papers from Springfield or Champaign to actually learn the truth.
What Smithmier and his fellow administrators are doing is morally and ethically wrong.
The people of Decatur can only hope that the federal investigation is still on going and these crooks will be forced to finally pay for how they have robbed the hospital of land and money donated by trusting citizens, defrauded medicare and medicaid, and so on.
Are the Fed still investigating or have they thrown in the towel and gone back to Washington?
Enron is a great example of what CEO's can get away with. Tyco is another example. Smithmier would have fit right in at one of those companies.
Thank goodness the DMH pension plan does not include DMH stock. Otherwise people nearing retirement age would really be in trouble.
Are DMH board members paid? If they are, no wonder they are just a rubber stamp machine for Ken to get richer while the people who actually take care of patients get poorer because of the increased cost of their "benefits" and raises that do not keep pace with inflation and the cost of living.
No more bonuses for DMH workers because DMH is losing money every day. I just don't understand how DMH can afford to pay Smithmier such a huge bonus while claiming to lose money.
If board members are not paid, why on earth would they allow themselves to be associated with and organization like DMH?
Is anyone out there paying any attention to what is going on at DMH besides the people who have managed to find this website?
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