In the News

State Journal Register, February 14, 2009

A scandal-plagued state board that decides the fate of billions of dollars’ worth of Illinois hospital projects would be expanded, and board members would be paid, based on long-awaited proposals from a legislative task force.

Along with an estimated $1 million in new spending on annual salaries and benefits for members of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, the recommendations call for the hiring of 13 new staff members, at a cost of $1.5 million annually, who would examine the long-term health-care needs of Illinois residents.

The Illinois Task Force on Health Planning Reform was created in response to corruption connected with former board member Stuart Levine, former board chairman Thomas Beck and Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Levine, who has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, and Rezko, who was found guilty by a jury, were linked in their court cases to efforts to illegally influence the board, but they haven’t been sentenced.

Allegations of influence-peddling connected with the board also were part of the recent impeachment proceedings for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The task force’s recommendations are designed to make the state planning board more efficient and professional, the task force’s co-chairwoman told The State Journal-Register.

“This is one of the most important boards in the state of Illinois,” said state Sen. Susan Garrett, D-Lake Forest.

Representatives from the hospital and nursing home industries praised the task force recommendations.

“Taken as a whole, they did a real good job,” said Howard Peters, senior vice president of government relations at the Naperville-based Illinois Hospital Association. “There are a lot of reasons to be grateful to the task force.”

Susana Lopatka, a retired state employee and the board’s acting chairwoman, said she agreed with some of the proposed changes, including expanding the board from five members to nine, with not more than five belonging to the same political party.

Lopatka, a Chicago Republican who has served on the board since 2004, said a larger board would reduce the likelihood of tie votes or meetings canceled for lack of a quorum. The board, appointed by the governor with approval by the Senate, hasn’t had a full complement of members since she joined.

But Lopatka, a retired registered nurse, said other suggestions such as eliminating the board’s top staff position — whose current, $109,850-a-year job would be done by a proposed full-time board chairman paid about $90,000 a year — would “fix things that were not broken.”

The recommendations also require money state government may not have, she added.

Lopatka said the proposed salary levels — $40,000 to $65,000 for the remaining eight board members — aren’t justified and would “hyper-politicize the board rather than removing politics from it.

“I think people are going to clamor to be nominated for the board strictly because of the payment involved,” she said.

Board member James Burden, a Republican and retired Glenview urologist, agreed with most of the proposals but also thought the board salaries might be too high.

Board member Courtney Avery, a Chicago Democrat who works as an administrator for a not-for-profit mental-health agency, said she agreed with all the recommendations but wondered whether the new nominating process for new board members would be cumbersome.

Garrett said the salaries would be justified for the once-a-month meetings and hours needed between meetings to review project applications. Current board members receive only travel and hotel expenses and occasional $200-a-day stipends for meetings.

Garrett said the pay would attract high-quality applicants. 

“What we’re saying is this is a very important position,” she said. “It has nothing to do with profit motive.”

The board also would be renamed the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.

Everyone on the task force except for Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, approved the proposals. He issued a minority report that said greater steps should be taken to remove the board and its staff from the influence of the governor.

Otherwise, he said, “The threat of ‘pay-to-play’ scandals is always present.”

The recommendations, issued on the last day of 2008, are the product of a year’s worth of discussions by the 18-member task force of state lawmakers and representatives of hospitals, unions, consumers and the business community. They’ll be inserted into a bill that will be considered this spring by the General Assembly, Garrett said.

Reforms enacted by the legislature in 2004, after the illegal activities took place, removed all the previous members and downsized the board from nine to five members. The changes also prohibited contact between hospital officials and board members and excluded people from serving on the board if they or a relative worked for many types of health-care providers.

The chief executive of Naperville-based Edward Hospital has complained publicly that bias among the board’s staff — including non-voting executive secretary Jeffrey Mark — led to the board repeatedly turning down the hospital’s proposal to open a hospital in nearby Plainfield.

Lopatka said board members aren’t swayed by the staff.

Mark denied any bias, saying: “I present no subjective opinion as to the merits of any application. That’s not my role. Myself and other staff to the board present statements of facts and statements of findings, in conformance with the rules.”

Peters wouldn’t comment on the Edward Hospital case but said the board’s staff — he wouldn’t say who — have been “inappropriate and disrespectful” toward some hospital officials.

Complaints in Illinois about the certificate-of-need process aren’t unique among the states, said Dick Cauchi, health-care program director at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures.

Research hasn’t established conclusively that certificate programs hold down health-care costs, he said, noting that most projects get approved. In Illinois, the planning board gave the go-ahead to 560 projects worth $10.9 billion from July 2004 through June 2008 — an 86 percent approval rate.

Hospitals traditionally support certificate programs that can make it more difficult for doctors and other for-profit entities to open surgery centers that can siphon insured patients away from hospitals.

Illinois hospitals must seek planning board approval only when a project’s cost would exceed $8.9 million. The task force recommended that the planning board increase that minimum to $11.5 million for new facilities and $3 million for equipment purchases and other projects.

Peters said it’s uncertain whether the task force proposals would eliminate corruption.

“No matter what laws are put in place, if somebody is determined to be corrupt and break the law, no matter how good the law is, it will happen,” Peters said.

Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543 or dean.olsen@sj-r.com.