OSU Wexner to give 15,000 employees bonuses in November
Thousands of employees at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center will get a $1,000 bonus after 18 months of fighting COVID-19.
The medical center will pay out discretionary bonuses to more than 15,000 eligible employees in November. To qualify, workers must have worked at the medical center since April 1.
Bonus recipients will exclude most leadership roles, faculty members, physicians, temporary employees and students, according to the medical center.
“The past 18 months have been enormously challenging – for the organization and the dedicated staff who have shown grace and strength every day," Chief Financial Officer Mark Larmore said in a press release. "We sincerely thank you for being excellent team members, care providers, researchers and educators."
The bonus announcement comes less than two months after members of the nurses union sparred with medical center leaders over bonus payouts for executives.
The Ohio State University Nurses Organizations (OSUNO) bought a billboard near the medical center to advertise the $788,000 bonus then-ceo Dr. Hal Paz received in 2020 and the $284,437 bonus paid to former Chief Operating Officer David Mcquaid, who retired at the end of June.
In total, 11 executives at Wexner Medical Center were awarded bonuses in excess of $100,000 in 2020 and another 22 were given bonus pay of $50,000 or more, according to publicly available earnings records from Ohio State.
Along with highlighting bonuses given to the two hospital executives, the billboards claimed frontline workers received no bonus pay.
In August, Ohio State refuted the billboard's claims about bonuses for frontline workers, saying that all pay "benchmarked against comparable roles in the market." The medical center spent $11.7 million last fiscal year in staff bonuses, pandemic leave pay for staff who had to quarantine or were out ill, and preservation pay for staff who were unable to work due to the pandemic, according to a statement at the time.
Records show some but not all frontline workers did receive bonuses, though payouts varied widely. The most-frequent amount awarded was $300 to about 13,625 employees, Ohio State salary data shows.
The amount of bonus pay employees receive should match the level of work required of them at the bedside during the height of the pandemic, Rick Lucas, OSUNO'S president said in August.
"With the turnover and everything, it's just really tough and we're looking for the hospital to step out and do something to attract and retain the best staff," Lucas said at the time. "That's the right thing for patients and the right thing for everybody who works there." mfilby@dispatch.com @Maxfilby