What's at stake?
Valley Children's Hospital has faced criticism over executive compensation
Valley Children’s Hospital on Wednesday released its first detailed response to the recent firestorm over the salaries and benefits for top hospital executives.
In a media statement, the hospital said it was “pushing back against misinformation and setting the record straight regarding recent criticisms of executive compensation.”
They also said the $5 million CEO Todd Suntrapak received in 2021 was not his real salary, which they say has been about $1.7 million since 2020, which the hospital described as “in line with other health system CEOs with similar levels of responsibility.”
“The remainder of his compensation largely consists of bonuses based on meeting significant performance goals,” officials said in the statement, “again, the norm for health system CEOs.”
The controversial payday was the result of performance bonuses from two different years that were paid out in 2021, Valley Children’s said in a statement.
“Executive compensation at Valley Children’s is determined through rigorous, independent review processes,” Board Chair Michael Hanson said in the statement. “Our decisions are guided by industry standards and aimed at attracting and retaining top talent necessary to uphold our commitment to excellence in healthcare.”
They said tax documents from 2021 do “not in any way accurately represent a single year’s earnings for our CEO or other top executives. This is a one-time accounting adjustment,” the hospital also said in a separate letter to the Fresno City Council on Wednesday.
The letter was in response to Fresno Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld and Miguel Arias’s call for the state to investigate executive compensation at Valley Children’s Hospital.
Suntrapak has not commented on the controversy publicly.
Hanson, in the statement, also pushed back against criticism of the CEO’s $5 million loan from the hospital that helped him purchase a $6.5 million home in Carmel in 2022.
“Further, the loan provided to the CEO for the purchase of a home is not at all unusual as a retention tool,” Hanson said, “should the CEO voluntarily leave the organization within the 10-year period after the loan was advanced, the unamortized balance of the loan is required to be repaid.”
Hanson, the former Fresno Unified superintendent, also addressed the hospital’s reliance Medi-Cal reimbursements.
“Valley Children’s provides some of the highest quality care of any children’s hospital anywhere in the nation,” Hanson added. “Despite the fact that nearly 75% of our patients are from very low-income households and often face health challenges their more affluent peers do not, we ensure that these children have the same access to the best quality care.”
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