歪歪漫画

ROCHESTER, Minn. 鈥� While many Mayo Clinic executives didn鈥檛 receive raises in pandemic-plagued 2020, those wages jumped up in 2021 with the CEO鈥檚 salary climbing by 27%, to $3.48 million.

Following , top Mayo Clinic executives, such as CEO Gianrico Farrugia and then-Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Bolton, took small pay cuts in 2020.

Farrugia鈥檚 compensation dropped by 1%, from $2.77 million in 2019 to $2.74 million in 2020. Similarly, Bolton鈥檚 pay went from $1.73 million in 2019 to $1.69 million in 2020, which is a decrease of 2%.

In 2021, Mayo Clinic started ramping wages back up. The top-paid employees saw the largest raises.

Farrugia's compensation climbed by 27% in 2021, while Bolton鈥檚 increased by 24% to $2.11 million. Florida campus CEO Kent Thielen saw his pay grow by 20%, to $1.79 million, in 2021, up from $1.48 million. Arizona CEO Richard Gray鈥檚 earnings climbed to $1.78 million in 2021, which was a 26% increase from $1.41 million in 2020.

Former Mayo CEO John Noseworthy received $3.45 million in compensation in 2018, so Farrugia has surpassed him with his current compensation.

This salary information is available because Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit, required annually to report top salaries to the IRS in a public document called a 990 form. The most recent Mayo Clinic 990s are from 2021, when it listed the compensation for 253 of its top employees.

A total of 26 Mayo Clinic employees reported compensation of more than $1 million in 2021. That was up from 23 in 2020 and 21 in 2019.

When asked about the 2021 executive raises, Mayo Clinic Spokeswoman Ginger Plumbo responded with a statement.

鈥淢ayo Clinic is the top-ranked health care provider in the country in large part because of our staff. A structured compensation program has been used for salaries at Mayo Clinic for more than 45 years to remove financial incentives to do more than is necessary or less than required for the patient,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淭here are no incentives or bonus pay. Executive compensation is no exception to this model and is necessary to deliver on our plan to cure, connect and transform health care.鈥�

Mayo Clinic鈥檚 documentation of its highest paid employees include columns for 鈥淏onus and incentive compensation鈥� and 鈥淥ther reportable compensation鈥� in addition to 鈥淏ase compensation鈥� and 鈥淣ontaxable benefits.鈥�

While Farrugia鈥檚 base compensation was $2.71 million in 2021, his 鈥淥ther鈥� compensation was $676,292. He also reported 鈥淩etirement and other deferred compensation鈥� of $58,225 and $38,289 of 鈥淣ontaxable benefits.鈥�

Mayo Clinic Treasurer Paul Gorman, who earned $1.27 million of total compensation in 2021, reported bonus compensation of $290,952 and $111,317 in other compensation. His base salary was $786,080.

Nonprofit hospital executive compensation has long been a subject of industrywide debate.

Hospitals say they need the higher salaries to attract and retain employees who could make more in the for-profit sector. Critics say that the executives should not take home multi-million-dollar paychecks, while bedside caregivers have to fight for much smaller raises.

The Lown Institute, a health care think tank, recently looked at the 2018 compensation at more than 1,000 nonprofit hospitals. The leaders of teaching hospitals, such as Mayo Clinic, reported greater compensation on average, according to the report.

They discovered that, on average, nonprofit hospital CEOs made eight times what workers without advanced degrees earned. The CEO to employee ratios ranged from 2-to-1 to 60-to-1.

The highest paid nonprofit hospital CEO in 2018 was Kaiser Permanente鈥檚 Bernard Tyson, who earned almost $18 million. Javon Bea, CEO of Javon Bea Hospital and a Rochester developer, received $9.36 million from his much smaller health system in 2018.

Novant Health Inc., based in Winston-Salem, paid $4.47 million to CEO Carl Armato in 2021. That was a 10% raise from 2020. Sanford Health, which is in talks to acquire Minnesota鈥檚 Allina Health, paid $3.3 million to its CEO and President Bill Gassen 2021. In 2020, Allina paid out $49 million to its outgoing CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft .

Elsewhere across Mayo Clinic, the majority of employees are seeing their pay increase, if not as quickly as the paychecks of many executives.

Looking to 2023, Mayo Clinic recently announced eligible, non-union That is step up from Mayo Clinic鈥檚 4% raise in 2022. The 600 food service staffers who work for Morrison Healthcare on Mayo Clinic campuses .

Dr. Elizabeth DePeri, a diagnostic radiologist who worked on Mayo Clinic鈥檚 Jacksonville, Florida, campus, was the fifth highest paid employee in 2021, at $1.78 million, even though she had a 鈥渂ase compensation鈥� of $0.

Mayo Clinic reported that the one-time payment to DePeri was 鈥淚n conjunction with the settlement of an employment dispute.鈥� DePeri, who worked for Mayo Clinic for 19 years, was dismissed in September 2019, after not being able to agree on 鈥渞easonable accommodation鈥� for her diagnosed disability. The case was settled by mediation in November 2021.

DePeri was the only woman in the 20 highest paid Mayo Clinic employees in 2021.