Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Broward Health board chairman, among 5 indicted leaders, resigns
The chairman of the Broward Health board resigned this week, after a tumultuous term that climaxed with his indictment last December along with four of the public hospital system’s other leaders.
Rocky Rodriguez, who had been appointed by Gov. Rick Scott, stepped down, board member Steven Wellins said Wednesday at the opening of a board committee meeting. The board that day also approved a compensation package for the system’s chief executive officer, Beverly Capasso, that could reach $1.125 million, counting bonuses.
“We received notification that Rocky Rodriguez has resigned his position as commissioner of the North Broward Hospital District,” Wellins said, using the organization’s legal name. “On behalf of all the board of commissioners, I would personally like to thank Rocky for his leadership, his dedication, his contributions through the years.”
No details were immediately
available. Vice Chairman Christopher Ure said he was notified by Capasso just before the meeting.
Rodriguez, long a fixture in local Republican politics, was one of five Broward Health leaders indicted by a grand jury in December over the handling of the firing of a previous interim chief executive, which prosecutors said was carried out in violation of the state “Sunshine Law,” which requires the actions of public boards to be carried out in public.
He has denied any wrongdoing. The case is pending. He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. His attorney, Bruce Lyons, said “He has devoted his life to public service and he needs to deal with medical family issues and his business.”
He said Rodriguez’s decision to step down had nothing to do with the indictment. “To be clear, Rocky’s resignation was in no way related to these misdemeanor charges but in the best interests of his family and business,” he said. “He intends to fight these allegations that he violated the Sunshine Law.”
The accusations involved the firing of interim CEO Pauline Grant in late 2016. The indictment said board members met individually with lawyers hired by the district to investigate Grant and communicated through intermediaries to skirt the state’s open-meetings law.
Broward Health, which is partially supported by property taxes, operates five hospitals and other facilities that serve the northern two-thirds of the county.The system is supposed to be governed by a sevenmember board but has long lacked a full complement of members, due to resignations and an insufficient number of appointments by the governor.
The four remaining board members took up the question of naming a new chairman. Commissioner Nancy Gregoire nominated Ure. Wellins nominated board member Commissioner Andrew Klein, a lawyer who is the second-mostrecent appointment to the board.
“I think his leadership, his legal background, his independence from the past will be a way for us to transition forward,” Wellins said.
But at the urging of Ure, who said they shouldn’t rush into a decision on news they had just received, they postponed the selection of a new chairman until their April board meeting.
Capasso, who had previously served as interim CEO, had been chosen as permanent CEO Jan. 31, after the board rejected all the finalists from a national search.
She is among those under indictment, since at the time of the meeting in question, she had been serving on the board. Also indicted was General Counsel Lynn Barrett, board member Ure and former board member Linda Robison.
Peter Nyamora, Broward Health executive vice president for human resources, provided the board with figures that showed Capasso’s total financial package was lower than those for the CEOs of Broward Health’s closest competitors, Memorial Healthcare System, which serves southern Broward County, and Jackson Health System, which serves Miami-Dade County.
Capasso’s compensation package includes a base annual salary of $750,000, and two incentive bonuses. She could receive a bonus of up to 20 percent for effective compliance with a federal oversight agreement entered into in 2015 to settle charges that Broward Health maintained an illegal system for compensating physicians.
“I’m a big believer in performance-based contracts,” said board member Klein. “We’re obviously in a competitive area. We compete with other hospitals. We need to attract quality doctors and nurses and staff and executives, and obviously we’re competing for the patients’ dollars as well. As so we need to make sure that our folks here are properly incentivized, and this contract includes a base salary and significant incentive amounts.”
A second bonus, worth up to 30 percent, would be awarded as part of bonus program for senior managers approved Wednesday by the board. The bonuses would be awarded if Broward Health meets various targets involving finances, quality, safety and employee satisfaction and retention.
“At the end of the day, if we achieve the financial targets, we achieve the quality targets, we achieve the safety targets, we achieve the people target, meeting employee satisfaction, keeping people in place, that means we have a highly functioning district, a highly functioning group of hospitals,” Wellins said. “Hopefully, that leads to less reliance on taxpayer dollars because I don’t think there’s anybody on this board that doesn’t want to reduce the millage every single year that we can.”
The board also approved raises for nurses, although the percentages were considerably lower. Hourly pay increases for nurses will average five percent, depending on the length of service, a move intended to bring salaries in line with similar hospital systems and reduce turnover, which has been higher than the industry average.