Dozens of Erlanger hospital employees must use up vacation days accrued over the past year to help the hospital meet budget goals by the end of the fiscal year in June, executives said Tuesday.
Sixty-five employees in the guest services department were asked last month to use one of their paid vacation or sick leave days every two-week pay period between April and July 1, when the new fiscal year begins.
Erlanger employs about 4,000 people.
“This was a matter of making sure we are financially responsible,” Charlesetta Woodard-Thompson, chief operations officer, said Tuesday. “We did this as an effort not to have layoffs.”
In March, all 120 hospital departments were asked to cut 5 percent from their budgets in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, she said.
Some departments have been able to reduce spending by trimming supply costs or consolidating divisions to be more efficient, she said. The smaller guest services department — including guest representatives, critical care representatives and telecommunications staff — had fewer options for cuts and decided on the required furlough option.
Some hospital board trustees were surprised by the news of the furloughs, particularly considering that the hospital’s financial performance has appeared more stable lately.
At the hospital’s April 19 budget and finance committee meeting, hospital management reported that Erlanger earned $1.5 million in March.
Still, the hospital is still far short of its budget for the year, Ms. Woodard-Thompson said. So far this year, the hospital has lost $1.1 million, compared to a budgeted profit of $7.3 million, she said.
Erlanger board members said they’d heard anonymous complaints from employees about the furloughs but had not received any official announcement of the required leave days.
At the end of April, multiple copies of an anonymous letter claiming to be from an Erlanger employee were left at the hospital’s board offices, addressed to each board trustee, trustee Jim Worthington said Tuesday. The letter expressed concern about the mandated days off.
“I can certainly appreciate the position of the person writing the letter and I think it warrants an answer,” he said.
OTHER HOSPITALSEmployees have not been required to take paid or unpaid days off this fiscal year at Memorial Hospital or Parkridge Health System, spokespeople said. However. Memorial employees have been advised that next year there will be a lower threshold of how many unused vacation days they can carry over from one year to the next. Those accrued days can no longer exceed 150 percent of the total vacation days awarded in a given year, compared to 200 percent that was previously allowed, said spokesman Brian Lazenby.
Employees’ well-being must be the prioritized, even when difficult budget questions are raised, he said.
“If we don’t have the interest of our employees first, then how can we expect our patients to receive the type of care we advocate?” he said.
Most Erlanger employees accrue about one vacation day per pay period. At the time the employee earns that vacation day, Erlanger records the expense.
As employees take days off, the hospital draws from the bank of accumulated “paid” days, which means it doesn’t have to pay again for days that were already recorded as expenses. The result is reduced labor expenses in the pay period in which paid time off is used up.
Employees who don’t have any vacation time will take the days off without pay, executives said.
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