The October issue of Utah Business listed the 25 highest paid executives in the state of Utah. No. 7 was William Nelson, president and chief executive officer of Intermountain Health Care. He was paid $734,337 for last year's services. The interesting aspect of his salary is that his is the only "nonprofit" corporation in the highest paid executive list. Furthermore, his salary does not include perks such as automobile, health care, office space, travel expense, country club and things of that sort that are commonly paid by the business. I wonder how much that would be.
I do not mind anyone being paid what his company is willing to pay him, except if it is a nonprofit corporation. Here in Provo, the taxpayers pick up all the infrastructure for the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, an IHC facility. It does not pay property tax on an installation that has to be worth many millions.
Furthermore, I would like to know what the other important executives of IHC earn. I would like to know how many executives earn more than we pay our governor, i.e. $100,600 per year. I note that Mr. Simmons, president of Zions Bank, made $801,000. The difference between him and Mr. Nelson, however, is that Mr. Simmons owns a good share of the company, has a lifetime investment in building Zions Bank and is accountable to the stockholders. Who is Mr. Nelson accountable to? Furthermore, Zions pays property and income taxes before paying its executives.
I resent paying property taxes to support a "nonprofit" corporation that pays its chief executive seven times what the governor of the state of Utah makes. My solution to that obscene extravagance is to require IHC to pay property taxes on its facilities and income taxes just like every other for-profit company. If it has the money to pay these kinds of salaries, it certainly has the money to help support the government.
In today's paper I read about a $177,000,000 shortfall in the state's anticipated income. We will have to tighten our belts, and I suggest that the state look again at IHC. I would not be surprised that if IHC paid its fair share of taxes like other for-profit hospitals, that might be a welcome relief to all of us.
Jackson Howard
Provo