WA hospital CEO gets pay cut — to just over $1M a year

Washington's highest-paid public-hospital executive has won a new two-year employment contract that will pay him more than $1 million a year in salary and bonuses. But for longtime Valley Medical Center Chief Executive Rich Roodman, the deal amounts to a pay cut. Roodman's contract was the focus of a Kaiser Health News story last June, which looked at how incentives for hospital CEOS were driving the kind of hospital profits and expansion that many say are no longer affordable for patients, employers and taxpayers. The 30-year CEO of the Renton hospital — whose soaring pay has stirred local controversy for years — won unanimous approval for the contract extension Tuesday from the Valley Medical board of trustees.