Horne bashed over AHS letter
Health Minister Fred Horne’s decision to allow performance bonuses for health executives after firing the board that wanted to make the same payments is “laughable,” says Liberal Leader Raj Sherman.
The 10-member Alberta Health Services board was ousted in June after voting to award millions of dollars in “pay at risk” it felt contractually obligated to provide to health executives, despite Horne’s contention the move was unacceptable at a time of government cutbacks.
Janet Davidson, the interim AHS administrator appointed by Horne immediately after the board was fired, wrote a letter to the minister this week, saying the health authority had no legal standing to deny pay that is part of employment contracts.
“What was the point of Mr. Horne to fire the board when Janet Davidson told him the exact same thing?” Sherman said Saturday, calling the situation “laughable.”
“What’s he going to do now? Is he bowing down to Janet Davidson now that she’s told him the same thing, or is he going to fire Janet Davidson? ... This is either political theatre or a political mess.”
The timing of the announcement is “repulsive,” Wildrose health critic Heather Forsyth said. The letter was dated Wednesday, and released to the Journal on Friday.
“We must question the timing,” she said.
“I would think they have lawyers in AHS, throughout the government, and all of a sudden we hear about it on a Saturday, on a long weekend, and we have a major crisis in southern Alberta, and people quite frankly in this city are focused on one thing, and that’s the flood and getting their homes back and finding family heirlooms.”
“At-risk pay” calls for a certain portion of executive salary to be given only if people meet performance targets. A total of 99 executives were set to share $3.2 million in performance pay for the 2012-13 year.
Former board member John Lehners said this was attached to their performance, and between 55 per cent and 80 per cent of the pay at risk available was handed out, compared to almost all of it under previous bonus regimes.
He said he feels vindicated by Horne’s decision.
“Hopefully, people will understand we weren’t doing something to be contrarians, we had legal obligations. … It was a legacy from the previous boards. They had true bonuses, we had pay-at-risk, and now we were transitioning it out. Whether we liked it or not, it was a moot point. We had an obligation.”
Phone calls to several other former board members were not returned.
In March, Horne said it wouldn’t be right for him to interfere with the terms of employee contracts, but earlier this month he said the situation had changed, in part because he was told that even executives who wanted to forgo their pay would not be permitted to do so. The board was ousted June 12.
“The question that remains unanswered is why was (Horne) so keen on firing the board?” Sherman said.
“The board was created under legislation and the whole point was that the minister and government wasn’t to interfere in day-to-day decision making, and it’s my understanding that he did regularly interfere. Was this all a cover for him to take complete control of the health system?”
The letter from Davidson said executives can forgo the bonuses, but Sherman wonders whether the government will keep track of who accepts the money and who doesn’t.
“The government desperately needed some good news, so Fred Horne gets to be the tough guy, but the downside is that we have even more chaos and confusion in leadership, the bonuses still get paid and Albertans still have major health care access issues, so nothing has really changed.”