Regarding the pay increases, after two years of the management team giving up its pay raises, the Bradley Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center board voted to give the 3 percent boost they normally would have received over the past two years.
“We’re not giving them a raise,” said Joseph Newcomb, facility administrator.
The management team at the center gave up a 2 percent increase in 2009.
In 2010, the management team gave up another 1 percent.
“It’s a one-time 3 percent bump-up,” said Dr. John Stanbery, a board member and head of the finance committee. “They’re still not getting everything back (that they lost).”
The reason the management voluntarily gave up their annual pay increases, according to the BHRC board, is because the facility was unsure exactly how much money would be coming in and also how much money might be lost due to possible Medicare cuts.
In 2009, the center tried to hold down expenses to make up money anticipated, but not received, from the state of Tennessee. And, in 2010, at the most recent audit, the center had made a net profit of $600,000, again by trying to hold down expenditures, by receiving money from Medicare they had not planned on getting, and making sure that the money owed them — accounts payable — was paid as promptly as possible.
Most of this money is now in an escrow account.
According to Sandra Brock, controller/HR/IT at BHRC, much of its other employees or line staff are paid well — equal to or usually more than employees in other similar facilities. The center employs roughly between 100 and 250 employees, with around 200 of these being part of the nursing staff.
However, it is the opposite for the management employees. They usually have been paid lower than those in other such healthcare centers, despite the fact they manage a facility twice as large and with twice the occupancy, according to Brock.
“Our request is not to give an extra raise, but to give back the 3 percent they have given up in the past two years,” Brock wrote in a written request to the board.
In other business:
n It was reported at Monday’s Bradley County Commission meeting, Newcomb presented a check for $8,650 for the county to buy a new ventilator.
n Also at the Commission meeting, Newcomb presented the completion of BHRC’s yearly audit.
n In addition, two more air conditioners need to be changed out, Newcomb said. They are at the center and should be installed in the next few weeks. That will mean that two-thirds of the air conditioners will be new.
