AG Coakley to Testify at State House on Director Compensation Legislation For Charities

After a lot of public outrage over compensation for charity board members, the Government is trying to put caps on their salaries. On Tuesday, Attorney General Martha Coakley will testify at a hearing before the Joint Committee of the Judiciary in support of legislation her office filed with Senator Mark Montigny and Representative Martha M. Walz, to address concerns raised over charities compensating their boards.  The legislation would prohibit Massachusetts-based public charities from compensating their directors unless they obtain approval from the AG’s Office.

In April, AG Coakley’s office issued a report following an extensive investigation into the compensation of board members of Massachusetts’ four major charitable health insurers: Blue Cross Blue Shield, Fallon Community Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan.  As part of that investigation, the health insurers were given extensive opportunities to justify the rationale for compensating their board members in contrast to the overwhelming majority of charitable board members, including those at large hospitals and universities, who volunteer their time.  The Attorney General’s Office found that the rationales provided by the health insurers were unsupported.  Since then, Blue Cross and Fallon have stopped compensating their board members, while Tufts and Harvard Pilgrim have continued the practice.

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Posted by jcashman on Sep 26 2011. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry