State aid sought for Uconn Health Center

Officials cite medical work as it seeks funds in tight budget year

As the Uconn Health Center is fighting for more state money, top medical school officials said Monday that they have generated millions of dollars in grants as they seek advancements in cutting-edge biomedical research.

During a detailed presentation, officials told the legislature’s tax-writing finance committee about their daily work in a wide variety of medical aspects, including neuro-surgery, cancer, stroke, osteoarthritis, pain management, aging, and suicide risk assessment.

The health center is seeking an additional $16.9 million for the operations in Farmington, while the broader university is seeking an additional $47.3 million for Storrs and the regional campuses. The legislature is currently in the middle of public hearings on Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed budget, and final decisions are expected to be made before the regular legislative session ends on May 8. In the overall budget, the state is currently projected to end the fiscal year with a surplus of $161 million in the general fund and $246 million in the once-troubled Special Transportation Fund.

Sen. John Fonfara, a Hartford Democrat who co-chairs the tax-writing finance committee, said the informational forum was important to spread the word about the state’s public medical and dental schools. Legislators and others, he said, need to think more deeply about the medical advancements at the health center.

“When you think of Sloan Kettering … or St. Jude or the Mayo Clinic, most people don’t think about dollars and cents. They think about cures,” Fonfara said. “We want to be the best in basketball, and we show up. But when it comes to Uconn Health, we want to look at it from a ledger. … If it’s your child, you’re not thinking about dollars and cents. … I hope this forum today … has an impact. I’m a believer in public investment, and I think most people in this building are, as well.”

Sen. Tony Hwang, a Fairfield Republican, agreed.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that Uconn is our state university,” Hwang said. “That is very important to me, and this presentation hits home for me. As the bipartisan co-chair of the bioscience caucus … we know, in depth, the kind of contributions and innovations and discoveries that you all do at Uconn. These are real innovations. This is about finding solutions.”

When asked by Hwang about the fiscal challenges and academic funding, Uconn President Radenka Maric mentioned the high salaries that are paid at the

health center, where some doctors are paid more than $1 million per year.

“We are all competing for a limited pool of talents,” Maric said. “If you publicly shame the medical doctor for making the top salaries in Connecticut, that is not saying this is inviting. We look at the salaries, and we provide our best and brightest with competitive salaries. … I want all of us to keep that in mind when you read about the top salaries and you see the doctor paid $1 million, that doctor at Emory University will be paid $1.5 million. We all have to ask ourselves, why did that doctor decide to come to Connecticut? You have to be competitive.”

Hwang responded, though, that he wanted to be sure that Uconn “has to do their equal part” in fully respecting taxpayers’ dollars.

“Absolutely,” Maric said. “We will do our part to improve our efficiency.”

Large operation

The Uconn Health Center is among the largest entities in the state with an annual budget of $1.6 billion and 5,400 full-time and part-time employees. The operation has an economic impact of $3.3 billion to the state.

Uconn collected $129 million in grants during the 2023 fiscal year, up by $50 million from the 2017 fiscal year when $80 million was collected.

Much of the rise in numbers was attributed to an $864 million bioscience investment that was launched under then-gov. Dannel P. Malloy that allowed for 30% growth in enrollment since 2010 at the medical and dental schools. Currently, the medical school has 444 students and 737 residents, while the dental school has 204 students and 103 residents, according to state statistics.

History

The financial problems at the health center have been a long-running issue with the Connecticut legislature, dating back at least to 2000 and have continued for the terms of the past four governors. The health center sought millions in additional funding as lawmakers said for years that the fringe benefits for state employees at the state-subsidized

John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington were far beyond those at similar hospitals. At Lamont’s direction, the state will be funding the legacy costs of pensions and retiree health care.

Lamont is also moving forward with a consultant’s report to seek better efficiencies at the health center.

Behind the scenes, Maric and other top officials had been trying to block the request for proposals sought by Lamont, which was first reported by Hartford Courant columnist Kevin F. Rennie. Rennie obtained a two-page letter that was written by Maric and three of the university’s highest-ranking officials: board of trustees chairman Daniel Toscano, health center board chairman Sanford Cloud, and medical school dean Bruce T. Liang.

“We question the need to issue a broad RFP or RFI, particularly because, as you know, we fear this will cause significant damage to Uconn Health, including its schools, its reputation, and most importantly, retention and recruitment of the best and brightest faculty, staff and students, many of whom build their lives and careers in Connecticut,” the letter said.

The four leaders also said they are concerned about the future of the Uconn medical and dental schools that are based in Farmington.

“We are extremely concerned that if any responses include selling the clinical enterprise, the two schools’ accreditation — and therefore their ability to continue to operate — could be in serious jeopardy,” according to the letter.

During years of previous debates about the future of the health center, Connecticut lawmakers have repeatedly noted that Harvard Medical School does not own its own hospital and students instead learn at hospitals in Boston.

Legislatorshavequestioned the level of financial oversight at the health center. Uconn continued to pay an 84-yearold medical school professor, Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi, for at least five months with 11 biweekly paychecks until his body was discovered by police on Feb. 5, 2018. He was believed to have been killed in his Burlington home in 2017 and wrapped in black plastic garbage bags in the basement in a case in which his 70-yearold wife, Linda, was charged with murder. The case is still pending.

“You would hope people would recognize that somebody is not showing up at the office,” former Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly said of the case.

Recently, in the budget-writing appropriations committee, state Rep. Kathy Kennedy, a Republican from Milford, said that legislators had failed to address “the large elephant in the room” that Uconn has consistently had some of “the highest paid employees in the state.”

Kennedy’s comments came in the final minutes of the allotted time for Uconn, and the committee co-chairwoman, Sen. Cathy Osten, cut off the discussion and avoided a full-blown debate about university salaries.

“I think we have a difference of opinion on what is the elephant in the room,” said Osten, a Sprague Democrat.

Payroll

The health center has a large number of highly paid employees, according to the state comptroller’s office.

The health center has 421 employees being paid at least $200,000 per year, including 118 at $350,000 or more, 32 at $500,000 or more, eight at $800,000 or more and four employees at $1 million or more, according to the comptroller’s statistics. The total payroll for 2023 was $525 million for thousands of employees in a sprawling operation that includes a hospital running 24 hours per day.

Statewide, the Uconn Health Center employs 10 of the top 15 highest-paid state employees and 30 of the top 45 highest-paid. The overall university has the highest total payroll of any state agency, including large departments like corrections and transportation, as well as the entire judicial branch, according to statistics released by the state comptroller.

Uconn, however, says that the top-paid researchers generate millions of dollars in revenue that are higher than the amount of their salaries. Five health center faculty members “collectively generated more than $20 million in 2022 in clinical care revenue for Uconn Health — nearly quadruple their total combined salaries,” the university said.