Attorney general weighs in on meetings
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III dirtied the shine on the $1.7 million in bonuses Erlanger Health System trustees decided in December to give hospital executives with his opinion Wednesday that the meeting in which the bonuses were discussed should have been an open and not a closed meeting.
State law, the opinion said, “would not permit the board of a public hospital that is subject to the Tennessee Open Meetings Act and Tennessee Public Records Act to meet in closed session to discuss executive compensation and executive bonuses.”
Some board members have acknowledged the meeting in which the salaries were discussed was closed, but, if the hospital was only paying bonuses due to previously set benchmarks, as it has alleged, why was the meeting closed? If the matter was cut and dried, what needed to be shielded from public eyes?
Public hospitals are allowed, for the sake of competition, to discuss “marketing strategies and strategic plans” in private, but Slatery’s opinion — requested by several local legislators — also made clear that executive compensation and executive bonuses were not a part of marketing strategies or strategic plans.