[1]
(DETAILS of Firing https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/08/09/metrohealth-fires-ceo-dr--airica-steed [2]
Dr. Christine Alexander-Rager has been appointed the acting president and CEO of MetroHealth, effective immediately.)
The Cuyahoga County Executive Was Supposed to Have Taken Charge of the MetroHealth System by Now
Richard G. Johnson [3]
Plaintiff's Lawyer & Sports Agent Malpractice • Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Issues • College Athlete Rights Advocate
March 7, 2023
Back in December, this was Chris Ronayne [4]'s plan as to how to deal with MetroHealth:
Incoming Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne plans to deal with the controversy at MetroHealth System by forming a team to observe operations, conducting an independent audit and possibly replacing some board members in the wake of the firing of the CEO amid allegations of unauthorized self payments.
Yet nothing has happened so far, and this failure has resulted in two months of lost opportunities, while the conflicted Board obtained a biased consulting report from BDO US LLP via their retained law firm Tucker Ellis LLP rather than an independent audit under the control of the County Executive's team and office.
Now, "“[His] goal is to reposition MetroHealth as a great hospital in our healthcare network,' Ronayne said." Julie Washington, “Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne Steps Up Monitoring of MetroHealth in Wake of Bonus Controversy, Cleveland.com, Mar. 6, 2023 [6].
Does our new County Executive not know that MetroHealth is still a great hospital as built by Dr. Akram Boutros and his team, but that it is now at great risk of demise due to an incompetent Board, CEO, and COO?
Has the County Executive read any of my articles about the Board? For instance, "The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lies in its Answer to Dr. Akram Boutros [7]; or "The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lie Out of Both Sides of their Mouths [8]."
Has the County Executive read my article about the new CEO, "The Sham Search for Dr. Akram Boutros’s Successor [9]?" Metro has still not responded to my public records request for Dr. Steed's bona fides, but in my follow-up post to this article [10], her qualifications seem suspect, and her own statements about her lack of experience that are quoted in the comments thereto are beyond belief.
Has the County Executive read my article about the new COO, "The MetroHealth System Is Poised to Sink Like a Rock without Dr. Akram Boutros [11]?" His hiring and job description materially changed other's job descriptions, thus giving other executives the right to leave with severance, as explained in my article, The MetroHealth System's Death Spiral Has Begun …. [12]
To me its obvious that it's clean sweep time.
Under Ohio law, the County Executive can terminate the entire Board for neglect and other reasons, and I think he should do so immediately and appoint a completely new Board. Ohio Revised Code Section 339.02 (H) [13]. The new Board can deal with the CEO/COO problem.
Under Ohio law, Metro can pay its trustees a stipend for their time, and given that Metro is bigger than the County, the new County Executive might think about whether it is practical to have a volunteer Board overseeing a $1.6BB hospital system. Ohio Revised Code Section 339.02 (I) [13].
Plus, providing a stipend would allow the County Executive to lower the average age of the Board closer to the average age in the County, which would bring a more active composition to the Board, much like the County Council. Needless to say, the Board composition should reflect the demographics of the County, and there are plenty of qualified people available to serve in each demographic.
Volunteering on a non-profit board is one thing, but when the non-profit is a huge operating business, different skills and oversight are needed, with significant time demands, that the current Board was simply not willing to expend as the trustees freely admitted in their Q&A with the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in December [14]. (I have applied to be appointed to the Board, but I would not do so without a clean sweep and without a reasonable stipend for the twenty-to-forty hours a month that would be required to do that job correctly.)
My view is that a new Board solves all of the problems that I know of, since the current Board created those problems by terminating Dr. Boutros without cause. All the Board had to do was decide and award Dr. Boutros's resubmitted bonuses and then coast another six weeks until his retirement. Instead, they fired the nuclear ICBM. Lack of judgment would be an understatement.
Metro is audited every year. There is no allegation of missing money. So why order a redundant audit? Like everything else, the Board asked for one to misdirect focus, but if you don't have money missing, what is there to audit? Other than the cost of the auditors and the time spent by Metro staff, there's no harm to another audit, but it's not going to do any good, because you can't audit judgment or the lack thereof.
With a new Board, I'd do everything possible to rehire Dr. Boutros, and within reason, I'd pay him what he asked for back in 2021, which was fair and reasonable, and then enough to make amends for how he has been mistreated. Obviously, he'd need to be paid for the damages that the Board has caused, which can be recovered by the new Board from the old trustee's D&O coverage, after they are terminated. (Trial is now scheduled for early December, and how the current Board compared to a new Board will handle settlement negotiations seems obvious to me. But one way or another, it seems that this dispute will be resolved by the end of this year, not years from now.)
Needless to say, Dr. Boutros needs a complete public apology, because he did absolutely nothing wrong—he gave so much to this County and to Metro that it's unfathomable that this dispute was even allowed to become public let alone become a war.
I find it beyond annoying that the County Executive three months later is still talking about what he's going to do about this dispute, when he originally promised to take action as soon as he took office. If the County consolidated Metro's financials as it should, Metro would be more than half the County's revenue and expenses, and it would be two-thirds of its workforce. Possibly the largest benefit people get from the County is Metro, yet all the County has to pay for this is $32MM, and of that, $7MM is diverted to the County addiction board. Metro's billion dollar bond float is NOT guaranteed by the County.
Historically, Metro has been paid little attention by the County, when it should be integral to the County's problem solving potential. If I were the County Executive, I'd pay a lot more attention to Metro. Fire the current Board, appoint an excellent new one, settle with Dr. Boutros ASAP, hire him if possible or find a real replacement, and continue with making Metro a multiplier of good in this County.
*****Index to other articles I have written on this dispute:
Here's a list of the articles I've written here on the Akram Boutros/MetroHealth Board dispute:
12/08/22: MetroHealth Is Dr. Boutros, In Case You Don't Know or Remember What It Was, available at https://lnkd.in/g3R3mEFV [15]
12/10/22: Why Can't the Metro Board Apologize to Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/g6pEVyzh [16]
12/15/22: The Sham Search for Dr. Akram Boutros’s Successor, available at https://lnkd.in/gHz-747C [17]
12/21/22: Why Can't the Plain Dealer Admit It's Flat-Out Wrong About Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/gYUH6Gsh [18]
12/24/22: The Plain Dealer Almost Apologizes to Dr. Akram Boutros!, available at https://lnkd.in/gfAAaYMJ [19]
12/29/22: The MetroHealth System Is Poised to Sink Like a Rock without Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://lnkd.in/giMJHK5f [11]
01/04/23: When Does the Plain Dealer Cross the Threshold of Malice Towards Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/gZ7XJVpC [20]
01/14/23: The MetroHealth System and the Plain Dealer Smear Dr. Akram Boutros by Repeating Knowingly False Allegations, available at https://lnkd.in/gMv6ivyG [21]
01/23/23: The MetroHealth System Drags Its Feet in Responding to my Public Records Requests Regarding its Board's Misconduct Towards Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-drags-its-feet-responding-my-public-johnson [22]
01/29/23: The MetroHealth System's Death Spiral Has Begun …, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-systems-death-spiral-has-begun-richard-g-johnson [12]
02/04/23: Would the Plain Dealer Please Stop Running Press Releases for the Metro Board?, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-already-know-cleveland-plain-dealer-sides-system-board-johnson [23]
02/07/23: Stiffing Public Records Requests the Metro Way!, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stiffing-public-records-requests-metro-way-richard-g-johnson [24]
02/18/23: Can You Believe How Hard It Is to Get Public Records from Metro?, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-you-believe-how-hard-get-public-records-from-metro-johnson/ [25]
02/21/23: The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lies in its Answer to Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-board-trustees-lies-its-answer-richard-g-johnson [7]
03/05/23: The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lie Out of Both Sides of their Mouths, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-board-trustees-lie-out-both-sides-mouths-johnson [8]
03/07/23: The Cuyahoga County Executive Was Supposed to Have Taken Charge of the MetroHealth System by Now, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cuyahoga-county-executive-supposed-have-taken-charge-system-johnson [26]