In light of the continued strain on the state’s budget, just one top executive at Hawaii Health Systems Corp. got a raise this year, according to a Civil Beat review. Nearly all other salaries for workers employed by Hawaii’s network of community hospitals have remained stagnant over the past year.

The salary freezes aren’t surprising in light of similar restraints seen statewide.

Hawaii Health Systems Corp. runs 14 health-care facilities on five islands with an operating budget of $586 million for the fiscal year that started July 1. About 60 percent of that is going toward salaries and benefits for its approximately 4,000 employees.

Under the the state’s open records law, Civil Beat asked HHSC for the names, positions and salaries of the system’s employees. The request is part of a larger effort to make more transparent how the state is spending taxpayer money. (For a complete list of salaries Civil Beat has published, visit our state salaries topic page.) For unionized employees, the HHSC provided Civil Beat with salary ranges.

Unionized HHSC employees saw their salaries revert back to pre-furlough levels on July 1, 2011. But that was immediately followed by subsequent pay cuts. Employees represented by the Hawaii Government Employees Association subsequently received 5 percent pay cuts. Those in the United Public Workers union received wage cuts equal to a 5 percent reduction through so-called “directed leave without pay” days.

As for management, HHSC President and CEO Bruce Anderson extended 5 percent pay cuts that started in October 2009 through June 30, 2013 for senior leadership and non-unionized positions, according to spokesman Miles Takaaze.

Lone Raise

But that extended pay cut hasn’t applied to Howard Ainsley, one of five regional CEOs. Ainsley, who oversees the East Hawaii region, saw his salary increase 5 percent to $240,000 this year, making him the second-highest paid in the system.

The decision to give Ainsely a raise — which restores his salary to the level he was hired at in 2008 — came down from the East Hawaii regional board following a performance review. Lawmakers in 2007 gave regional boards the authority to negotiate salaries for executives.

Ainsley’s responsibilities include Hilo Medical Center, the largest HHSC hospital, along with three other critical-access hospitals and a behavioral health center.

Anderson, the system’s president and CEO, is the highest paid employee at $242,250. He was hired in April 2011 and replaced Vice President and General Counsel Alice Hall, who had been named to fill the position temporarily after long-time President Tom Driskill retired in late 2009.

Anderson oversees all facilities, which HHSC says accounts for almost 20 percent of all acute care discharges in the state. The hospital network is the fourth largest public health system in the U.S., HHSC officials said.

By comparison, the head of the Queens Health Systems, which has about 3,700 employees — slightly fewer than HHSC — received a base salary of $585,105 and total compensation of $1.3 million, according to the organization’s latest tax filings.

The chief executive of Hawaii Pacific Health, which has about 5,400 employees, received a base salary of $753,034 and total compensation of $2.29 million, according to the group’s latest tax filings.

Highest Paid at HHSC

$359 Million on Payroll

A Civil Beat analysis of the salary data shows that the most common positions at HHSC are Registered Professional Nurse III (928 total), a position that pays between $68,736 and $85,320, and Certified Nurse Aide (401 total), a position that pays between $32,736 and $38,604.

HHSC is often described as a “quasi-public” state agency. The state in 1996 formed HHSC and transferred oversight of its rural community hospitals away from the Department of Health to give the facilities more autonomy and self-governance.

Most of its operating funds come from patient services. About 12 percent of its budget, or nearly $72 million, is from the state general fund. Salaries and benefits alone total $359 million — nearly two-thirds of its annual budget of $586 million.

Total payroll costs for each of HHSC’s five regions have gone down between 1 percent and 4 percent compared to the previous year, except for the Kauai region, which saw an increase of about 8 percent.

Here’s a breakdown of payroll costs for each of the facilities:

East Hawaii Region

• Hilo Medical Center: $80.1 million
• Hale Hoola Hamakua: $6.7 million
• Kau Hospital: $4.6 million
• Yukio Okutsu Veterans Care Home: $4.9 million

West Hawaii Region

• Kona Community Hospital: $40.8 million
• Kohala Hospital: $4.4 million

Maui Region

• Maui Memorial Medical Center: $114.3 million
• Kula Hospital: $17.1 million
• Lanai Community Hospital: $2.6 million

Oahu Region

• Leahi Hospital: $19.3 million
• Maluhia: $15.8 million
• Kahuku Medical Center: $4.9 million

Kauai Region

• Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital: $28.9 million
• Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital: $14.5 million

Below is a searchable database of all HHSC employees for the 2011 and 2012 fiscal years. You can search by first and last name, department, job title, salary range and fiscal year.

Lena Tran contributed to this report.

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