Wednesday, March 04, 2009
NBCChicago.com

An independent board has selected a new CEO for the troubled Cook County Health and Hospitals System, and this guy's apparently got some business sense.

"If he does his job right, he's going to save us a lot more money than if we hire someone for less money who can't do the job right," said Cook County Board Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) regarding the $500,000 a year salary offered to 58-year-old William Foley as the system's new chief executive officer.

Foley will also have the potential for a bonus of up to $50,000 a year, and a list of CEO salaries made public by the board shows that Foley's is far from the top.

The new CEO has experience "staunching the flow of red ink at a large not-for-profit medical system and a public hospital on the West Coast," the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. His credentials include the running of Provena Health, a Catholic system that includes six hospitals.

"When he started, the system was operating $28 million in the red, and by 2005, it was about $31 million in the black," according to the Trib.

"I think they have found a good man," Board President Todd Stroger said.