Is Valley Children’s $5.1 million CEO pay too high for a nonprofit? See the comparisons

The CEO of the nonprofit Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County was compensated more during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, than all but two of the head executives at the nation’s larger children’s hospitals, according to The Fresno Bee’s review of nonprofit federal tax filings.

Valley Children’s treats patients from across a 45,000-square-mile region, and more than 70% of those children are recipients of Medi-Cal, the state insurance program for low-income people. Valley Children’s is the 16th largest children’s hospital in the nation, according to Becker’s Hospital Review, which ranks them based on bed counts.

CEO Todd Suntrapak was compensated more than children’s hospital CEOs in several major American cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and more. His total compensation was $5.17 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, which included a base salary, bonus and perks. Here’s what the tax filing shows:

• Base compensation: $1.68 million

• Bonus and incentive compensation: $1.59 million

• “Other reportable compensation”: $1.8 million

• Retirement and other deferred compensation: $27,540

• Non-taxable benefits: $38,122

• Total: $5.17 million

A total of 18 other executives at Valley Children’s received compensation of more than $500,000 that fiscal year. In total, the 28 key employees, officers and directors (including the CEO), listed on Valley Children’s filed tax form were compensated $26.96 million, a figure higher than for the other larger children’s hospitals in California when comparing executive compensation required to be listed on the tax forms, according to The Bee’s review of the nonprofit tax filings. Through a Valley Children’s spokesperson, Suntrapak declined to comment to The Bee about the compensation. The Bee looked at the latest publicly available nonprofit tax filings, called Form 990s, for the largest 16 children’s hospitals in the nation. The 16 CEOs are listed below in order of highest to lowest total compensation. For this story, The Bee considered the total compensation of the head executives to be the sum of the categories listed on the Form 990: “Base compensation,” “Bonus and incentives,” “Other reportable compensation,” “Retirement and other deferred compensation,” and “Nontaxable benefits.” Form 990 public tax filings are required by law for nonprofits.

1) Texas Children’s Hospital - Houston

• Size Ranking: 1

• CEO: Mark Wallace

• Total Compensation: $8,847,132

2) Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

• Size Ranking: 4

• CEO: Madeline Bell

• Total Compensation: $7,671,953

3) Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County

• Size Ranking: 16

• CEO: Todd Suntrapak

• Total Compensation: $5,173,430

4) Riley Hospital for Children - Indianapolis

• Size Ranking: 8

• CEO: Dennis Murphy (Indiana University Health)

• Total Compensation: $4,982,844

5) Boston Children’s Hospital

• Size Ranking: 7

• CEO: Kevin Churchwell

• Total Compensation: $2,858,280

6) Cook Children’s Medical Center - Ft. Worth

• Size Ranking: 10

• CEO: Rick Merrill

• Total Compensation: $2,663,388

7) Children’s Hospital Colorado - Aurora

• Size Ranking: 6

• CEO: Jena Hausmann

• Total Compensation: $2,537,734

8) Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford - Palo Alto

• Size Ranking: 13

• CEO: Paul King

• Total Compensation: $2,461,531

9) Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

• Size Rank: 15

• CEO: Thomas Shanley

• Total Compensation: $2,234,530

10) Children’s Medical Center - Dallas

• Size Rank: 14

• CEO: Peter Perialas (president of Children’s Health Clinical Operations)

• Total Compensation: $2,185,693

11) Children’s Minnesota Hospital - Minneapolis

• Size Rank: 12

• CEO: Marc Gorelick

• Total Compensation: $1,978,002

12) Nationwide Children’s Hospital - Columbus, Ohio

• Size Rank: 3

• CEO: Richard Miller (Chief Operating Officer)

• Total Compensation: $1,807,629

13) Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

• Size Rank: 11

• CEO: Paul Viviano

• Total Compensation: $1,736,899

14) Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

• Size Rank: 2

• CEO: Steve Davis

• Total Compensation: $1,726,807

15) Rady Children’s Hospital - San Diego

• Size Rank: 5

• CEO: Patrick Frias

• Total Compensation: $1,713,578

16) St. Louis Children’s Hospital

• Size Rank: 9

• CEO: Trish Lollo

• Total Compensation: $891,352

La Abeja, a newsletter written for and by California Latinos

Sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter centered around Latino issues in California.

The Bee requested an interview with Suntrapak to ask about his compensation and that of the other executives listed on the tax form. The Bee also wants to ask about the more than $37 million in loans granted to executives by the hospital.

Among those loans is a $5 million home loan that the hospital awarded Suntrapak. A deed shows he bought a $6.5 million home in the city of Carmel in 2022, but a search of Monterey County records does not show there is a lien on the home associated with Valley Children’s.

Hospital spokesperson Zara Arboleda told The Bee on Thursday that Suntrapak will not be providing interviews at this time. Vintage Foster, CEO of AMF Media, a public relations firm that spoke for Valley Children’s last week, did not respond to The Bee’s emails requesting an interview.

The hospital is widely recognized in Fresno – a city where more than 20% of people live in poverty – for its quality care and fundraising efforts. One of those is called Kids Day, when volunteers sell newspapers on the street to raise money for the hospital. The Fresno Bee has been a sponsor for Kids Day.

Fresno City Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld on Wednesday blasted the hospital’s executive pay as excessive for an institution that treats so many children from low income families. They called on the California Attorney General and the State Assembly Joint Committee on Legislative Audit to investigate the hospital’s finances.

Suntrapak’s compensation more than doubled in recent years

The CEO’s total compensation was close to $2.1 million during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2020. The following year, his compensation increased $3.4 million, or 163%, to $5.5 million. His total compensation of $5.17 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, is a 147% increase from what it was two years before that.

Suntrapak’s base pay has also seen large increases.

Valley Children’s tax filing shows he received a 12% base pay increase from the previous year. But that raise had followed an increase of 24.7% the year before that.

His base pay increased a total of 39.6%, from $1.2 million to almost $1.7 million, between the fiscal years ending Sept. 30, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2022.