ROCKINGHAM — The Brattleboro Retreat's new CEO, Louis Josephson, paints a discouraging picture of Vermont's mental health system. I applaud his willingness to draw attention to the crisis and support those who work in this challenging field.
Funding was predictably identified as one of the major obstacles. The article characterized his description of the state's mental health system as a “patchwork of underfunded services, chronic workforce, and bed shortages.”
Given the substantial amount Vermont taxpayers and charitable donors already provide the Retreat, it might be a good idea to look at how those dollars are spent before we invest more.
Some would suggest that restraining the corporate-level compensation of top management would be a good place to start.
According to the IRS Form 990 for 2014 (the most recent year available), Josephson's predecessor, Dr. Robert Simpson, was paid $507,712 in regular and deferred compensation. As a point of comparison for non-commercial compensation in our state, Vermont's governor is only paid $145,538.
And Francis Reed, Commissioner of the state's Mental Health Department, earns only $114,171.
Though I admire the staff and volunteers who work to raise money for the Retreat, the fruit of all their labors, $349,579 reported as “contributions, gifts, grants” on the 2014 form 990, covered just 69 percent of Dr. Simpson's salary. Given our county's median household income of $48,079, can we expect local folks to fund such extraordinary salaries?
The Retreat is not the only local nonprofit mental health organization funded by taxpayer and donor money which pays eye-popping CEO salaries.
Judith Hayward, recently retired CEO of Health Care and Rehabilitation Services, somehow convinced a pliable board of directors to award her a $650,000 golden parachute back in 2015.
In that year, HCRS's hundreds of employees didn't get raises and the state faced a nearly $100 million budget shortfall. But Hayward and the others at the top made out just fine, with the senior psychiatrist Dr. Paul Boutin pulling down $253,817, according to HRCS's 990.
Like their corporate brethren, hospital CEOs have seen their paychecks balloon to ungodly multiples of what their workers earn.
The boards of these organizations will argue that the market for nonprofit CEOs forces them to pay such salaries. But half-million dollar paychecks and $650,000 golden parachutes are hard to justify in Windham County.
Do we really need to pay big-city salaries to attract talent to this beautiful corner of the country where living expenses are so much lower than urban areas?
The organizations paying these princely salaries are legally “non-profit” and are thus shielded from most of the taxes that small-businesses owners have to come up with before paying themselves. And come to think of it, how many of our smart, capable, and hard-working local business CEOs earn this kind of money?
“More money to hire more employees” seems to be automatic response from advocates and legislators when the subject of mental health comes up.
But think of how many more mental health workers we could hire to confront this crisis if those at the top weren't pulling such vast amounts out of the system.
The vulnerable folks who depend on mental health services, as well as the people whose tax dollars and contributions fund them, deserve that we invest our limited funds more judiciously.