Huntsman wants hefty pay raise for state execs

The Senate version of HB1009 — which wasn't passed — would have placed Sundwall in the same pay category as the "highest physician salary range" in state government. Currently, that's the state medical examiner, whose pay range is $128,835 to $204,339 a year.

Sundwall now earns about $112,465, near the top of his pay range, which is $112,900 annually. Thus, Sundwall would have been eligible for an 82 percent pay raise, although it's unlikely Huntsman would have given him that much.

But the Senate bill would have required that Sundwall get at the very least a 15 percent pay hike, comparisons show, for it would have taken that much to bring Sundwall up to the minimum salary of $128,835.

Sundwall "would like his salary to be commensurate with his responsibilities, but at the same time, he believes in public service," Health Department spokeswoman Jana Kettering said.

Utah's Health Department director is responsible for administering Medicaid while in other states, Kettering said, the federal program is run by a separate medical doctor. "He's doing the work that in other states, two people do," she said.

Unlike his predecessors, though, Sundwall chose not to supplement his state paycheck with additional money from teaching or performing other services at the U. Health Sciences Center.

"He's not interested in doing so," she said.

By law, either the department director or a deputy director must be a medical doctor. Currently, neither of the department's two deputy directors, Richard Melton and Allen Korhonen, is a medical doctor.

Sundwall was in Atlanta meeting with officials of the Centers for Disease Control and not available for comment on the Legislature's action. Kettering said she couldn't "anticipate what he might do with that news" that he's only getting a 2.5 percent raise come July.

She added, "I just know the Utah Department of Health has already benefited from his leadership and hope that things will work out in the end."

Kikuchi said the governor is anxious to keep Sundwall. "Dr. Sundwall is nationally, if not internationally, renowned. Obviously, the governor would like to do whatever he can to retain his talents."

To deal with what he sees as inequities in the current executive pay system for Cabinet members, Huntsman has proposed to move all Cabinet-level executives up to the same pay range, $85,700 to $115,700 a year.

"It gives him the flexibility" to hire even more top-flight individuals into state government, Eastman told the conference committee.

Not all of those top executives would automatically make the top pay of $115,700 a year.

As is now the case, the governor himself sets those salaries with the ranges set by the Legislature.

But if money is found within those department budgets, the raises could be given.

Some department heads, like the agricultural commissioner, have lower pay ranges. In bringing all Cabinet members up to the same level (and in giving the top bosses at the top of their pay ranges at least a 2.5 percent pay hike this year), the lower-paid executives like the commissioner could have gotten a 30.8 percent pay hike under the Senate bill, Hughes told fellow House members.

Actually, the lower-paid executives could have received an even larger pay hike. If a lower-paid executive is in the middle of his pay range, for example, and Huntsman brought him up to the top of the proposed pay range (the $115,700), the pay hike could have hit 40 percent or more.

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