Health executives take home $5.8 million

EDMONTON – Top executives with Alberta’s health superboard earned $ 5.8 million in salary and bonuses last year, say documents released Thursday by the health board.

Stephen Duckett, president and CEO for Alberta Health Services, made a total of $744,000, including $595,000 in base salary and $76,619 in performance bonuses.

Chris Eagle, executive vice-president for rural, public and community health, made even more, grabbing $812,000 in total compensation.

Critics said the amount, particularly the bonuses, is outrageous given the province’s fiscal position and last year’s vacancy management policy that saw few new people hired on the front lines.

But Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said the salaries are standard for people with the high-level managerial experience needed to run an $11-billion health-care system.

"I realize that might be a high figure for the person on the street, but it’s not a high figure for people with equivalent responsibility, nationally," Zwozdesky said.

Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann said the salaries may be needed to help recruit good people, but blasted the bonuses as outlandish and unnecessary.

"These folks are getting top dollar and that should be the condition under which they perform their job," Swann said. "If they fail to perform, they should be given an opportunity to improve or leave."

As part of his compensation, Duckett also gets a paid sabbatical every four or five years.

Duckett’s $76,619 performance bonus is 53 per cent of what he was eligible to receive. Alberta Health Services found he missed his performance targets in a number of areas, including improving access, decreasing emergency room wait times and reducing wait times for hip replacement surgeries.

Zwozdesky deemed Duckett’s performance "a satisfactory grade under the circumstances."

Last year, when the health authority was facing a $1.3-billion budget deficit, it would have been tough for Duckett to hit all his targets, Zwozdesky said.

But in this spring’s budget, the government gave Alberta Health Services a big injection of cash and a five-year funding commitment. Zwozdesky said that should mean better performances from Duckett and the system overall.

"We’re talking about reduced wait times, reduced wait lists, faster access to specialists, quicker access to family docs," he said. "It’s a completely different set of circumstances."

In the fall, board members with the health superboard took a 25-to 30-per-cent salary rollback. But Duckett said he was unwilling to do so, having come to Alberta under his current contract.

"Why on earth should I do that?" Duckett said at the time. "That was part of the negotiated contract I had when I came here, and as Mr. Hughes said, I get paid less than (what former Calgary and Edmonton health CEOs Jack Davis and Sheila Weatherill) got paid for doing three times as much."

David Megran, the senior physician executive with Alberta Health Services, made a total of $726,000 in pay last year, including $80,221 in bonuses.

Megran and Eagle’s salaries were negotiated before the consolidation of the health regions in the spring of 2008, Alberta Health Services said.

Duckett was hired in January 2009. This is the first full fiscal year he’s been paid.

amclean@thejournal.canwest.com