Boston hospital executives earned up to $2.1m in 2011

Boston Children’s Hospital chief executive James Mandell was paid a total of $1.5 million in 2011, down from $2 million the previous year.John Gillooly

Chief executives at the Boston area’s largest nonprofit teaching hospitals drew pay packages of $1 million to $2.1 million in 2011, including salaries, bonuses, and compensation such as health and life insurance and retirement benefits.

Topping the list locally was Gary L. Gottlieb, chief executive of Partners HealthCare System, the state’s largest hospital and physicians organization, who received total compensation of $2.1 million in 2011, according to federal tax documents released Thursday by the nonprofits.

Unlike publicly traded companies, nonprofits are allowed to wait as much as 18 months before disclosing executive compensations because of filing extensions granted to them by the Internal Revenue Service.

Gottlieb’s package was down from 2010, the year he took over as Partners’ top executive, when he earned $3.1 million. Nearly half was for retirement benefits that vested that year.

The presidents of Partners-owned Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals also drew seven-figure packages in 2011, with Peter L. Slavin at Mass. General receiving a total of $1.7 million and Elizabeth G. Nabel at Brigham and Women’s a total of $1.9 million.

Ellen Zane, who served as Tufts Medical Center’s chief executive through September 2011, was paid a total of $1.6 million that year.Bill Brett for The Boston Globe/bb

Slavin’s pay was also down from 2010 when he earned $2.5 million, almost half of which was vested retirement benefits. Nabel’s compensation was up from the $1.6 million she earned in 2010.

The pay packages at Boston’s big academic medical centers were generally in line with those at similar institutions across the country, where boards set executive compensation partly by comparing it with that of top officials at peer hospitals, said Paul R. Dorf, managing director at Compensation Resources Inc., a Saddle River, N.J., consulting firm.

“In a big successful teaching hospital, it’s very rare to see anything less than $1 million in total compensation for the chief executive, and $1.5 million to $2 million is the norm,” Dorf said. “Executives at publicly traded pharma or medical device companies can make 10 times as much.”

Tufts Medical Center reported that Ellen M. Zane, who served as chief executive through September 2011, had total pay of $1.6 million that year.

Eric J. Beyer, who took over from Zane in October, had total compensation of $744,722 that included pay for work as chief executive and at his previous job as president of the Tufts Medical Center Physicians Organization.

James Mandell, chief executive at Boston Children’s Hospital, was paid a total of $1.5 million in 2011. That was down from the $2 million he earned the prior year when he received two separate incentive awards, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Mandell plans to retire next month and will be succeeded by Sandra Fenwick, the hospital’s president and chief operating officer.

Total compensation for Boston Medical Center chief executive Kate Walsh was listed at nearly $1.4 million in 2011, an increase from $1.3 million in 2010.

At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, chief executive Edward J. Benz Jr. received total compensation of nearly $1.3 million in 2011, up from $1.1 million in 2010.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center paid three different top executives in 2011.

Eric Buehrens, who served as interim chief executive from February to October, drew total compensation of just over $1 million for that role and other executive jobs.

The current chief executive, Kevin Tabb, who arrived in October, was paid $344,707 that year, including relocation expenses.

Former chief executive Paul F. Levy, who departed from Beth Israel Deaconess in February, received a total of $899,106 in 2011, including $779,467 as part of a severance payout. Overall, the hospital’s board awarded Levy as much as $1.6 million in severance.

Lahey Clinic Hospital Inc. of Burlington paid its chief executive, Howard R. Grant, just over $1 million in 2011. Grant’s compensation for 2010, the year he arrived, was $768,000, but most of that was for relocation costs and payments to make up deferred compensation he lost by leaving his previous job running a Pennsylvania health care system.