(CA) State Fund reformer was paid a salary of $450,000 a year, plus perks

[UpInArms]

Source: LA Times

After its president was ousted in a scandal, California's government-run insurance company hired Janet Frank to clean up the mess, offering her a salary and benefits far beyond the reach of most state workers.

As the new president of California's largest provider of workers' compensation coverage, the insurance industry veteran received a $450,000 annual salary plus a signing bonus of nearly $140,000 to help her move from Colorado, employment records obtained by The Times show.

For her first 2 1/2 months on the job, starting in 2007, she was paid a $40,000 performance bonus by the insurer, a hybrid public-private company known as State Fund, which serves as a safety net for businesses. She was paid a $153,000 bonus for 2008. This month, she received last year's bonus: $142,500. Citing confidentiality, company officials declined to say what performance goals Frank had met.

<snip>

Pay for most of its 7,400 workers is limited by Civil Service rules, but top executives are exempt, receiving large salaries and perks that are more common in the private sector. Their pay packages are part of a recent effort to make the organization run more like a profit-making enterprise.

Frank never moved to California. She decided to commute weekly from her Denver-area home and to telecommute on Fridays. State Fund added a $99,000 annual stipend for her, partly to cover thousands of dollars in monthly commuting costs.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-fund21-2010mar21,0,4221909.story

[Tempest]

1. Thank you Arnold

The Governor appoints nine members, including one from organized labor, and names the chairperson. The Speaker of the Assembly appoints one member who represents organized labor, and the Senate Committee on Rules appoints one member. The board also includes the Department of Industrial Relations Director as a non-voting “ex-officio” member.

http://www.statefundca.com/about/BoardOfDirectors.asp


The board was behind all of this.

http://www.wcexec.com/State-Fund-Plays-Hide-the-Contract-Then-Relents.aspx

[rfranklin]

2. "Executive compensation" is out of control...

If you are in those privileged ranks, it doesn't matter whether you succeed or fail. It doesn't matter that you are draining funds for a non-profit or basically stealing from the shareholders. There is no connection to reality.

Unfortunately, I think it will take a cataclysm before anything changes.

[24601]

10. It's still a pittance compared to the football & men's basketball

coaches at places like UCLA & USC. No lives at stake there either - just a fuckin game. Same way the Army & Air Force football coaches make about double than the President.

[truthisfreedom]

3. She took a signing bonus of $140K to help her move, but didn't move?

How does she reconcile this? How does anyone at the company reconcile this?

[UpInArms]

4. The "State" is the "Company" -

How does anyone at the company reconcile this?

[Roland99]

5. How true those words are, UIA.

The state is the company.

The company is the state.


Those entities are all but synonymous these days.

[UpInArms]

6. soon to be the employer of last resort and the funder of all employees

and the buyer of all insurance with the wages of the slaves who feed the machine.

[fujiyama]

7. Hell isn't that more than even the governor should make

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Arnold didn't take a salary right?

Either way, it's no wonder the state is such a disaster! $450k for being a state reformer? WTF?

[David__77]

8. Um, that isn't strange.

The state and government agencies hire consultants all the time and pay them up to $200+/hour for their services, which comes out to not much less than her salary if you annualize it. I'm not defending it, but this isn't a new thing...

[warpigs]

9. Not the only one to commute

Frank was not the only executive hired to turn State Fund around, nor the only one paid highly and allowed to commute from another state.

Doug Stewart, the chief risk officer and current interim president, earns $488,000 a year, not including his performance bonus, and flies in from Washington state. Becky Wanta, the chief information officer who resigned last year, earned $430,000 and traveled from Nevada.


I guess they can't find anyone who was qualified and actually lived in California to work at the fund. :crazy: They also only worked 3.5 days a week.

[anigbrowl]

11. This is not so unusual even in the private sector

I might note, in the interests of pure accuracy, that 'worked 3.5 days a week' is not the same as 'worked 3.5 days a week in the office'. If part of one's job can be performed effectively via the computer and telephone, I have no problem with that.

Now whether these people performed effectively or not, I don't know. It is true that in California someone doing the same job at a similarly-sized private company can make a lot more money. Maybe they need to take a different approach to their hiring policy.

It's also hard to tell from the article how good (or not) of a job they were doing. For example, if a company was losing $50 million a year and a team of three people got it back into stability for a total cost of $5 million (numbers are for example only) then you might consider it well worth the expense.

I do think they were paid a shitload of money and the taxpayer should know how well or badly spent that money was, so I'm definitely in favor of an audit.