PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson Healthcare commissioners raised CEO Mike Glenn’s salary to $350,000 for 2023 during a special meeting Thursday.
Following roughly an hour in executive session, commissioners approved the raise in a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Matt Ready opposed.
Jefferson Healthcare officials would not confirm Glenn’s 2022 salary, but Peninsula Daily News reported in October that Glenn’s salary was $300,000 based on comments made by Port Townsend Mayor David Faber during discussion of the city manager’s salary.
The apparent $50,000 increase from 2022-2023 would constitute a roughly 16 percent increase. Hospital employee compensation data from the Washington Department of Health lists Glenn’s 2020 base pay at $282,638. Data for Jefferson Healthcare in 2021 is not available from the state.
Several members of the board praised Glenn’s management of the hospital, saying his qualifications could garner higher wages elsewhere.
“He is an outstanding CEO and we are lucky to have him,” said Commissioner Jill Buhler Rienstra. “It will be a horrible day when he retires.”
Rienstra did not immediately respond to request for comment but said at the meeting Jefferson Hospital was one of only 15 hospitals in the state to have finished 2022 with a positive balance sheet. She also cited Glenn’s role in acquiring a $2.5 million federal grant to expand the Jefferson Healthcare Medical Center.
Commissioner Marie Dressler also praised Glenn’s record and said the hospital was financially stable.
“You get what you pay for,” Dressler said. “His performance has been exemplary.”
Ready — the lone nay vote — said at the meeting he had performance concerns and called the raise “excessive.”
In an email, Ready declined to comment on his concerns and said he had written about his concerns on his personal blog.
“My 2022 performance concern is that the CEO failed to provide any response to the failures I noted during his 2021 evaluation,” Ready wrote in a Jan. 13, post. “In a professional environment, employees should listen to feedback and answer important questions from their employer.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Glenn —who served as CEO of Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles from 1991-2006 — came to Jefferson Healthcare in 2010 after working administrative positions at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia and Valley Medical Center in Renton.
In 2018, he was awarded the Washington State Hospital Association’s annual Joe Hopkins Memorial Award and in 2017 was received the Grassroots Champion Award for the state of Washington from the American Hospital Association.
Jefferson Healthcare is the county’s largest employer with more than 800 employees, officials have said.
In addition to a 25-bed hospital, it owns and operates six rural health clinics, five primary care clinics, a dental and express clinic and nine speciality care clinics. It also operates Jefferson Healthcare Home Health and Hospice Service.
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Reporter Peter Segall can be reached at peter.segall@peninsuladailynews.com.
