MHMR CEO, Board Member Defend CEO’s Lucrative Contract
The vice chairman of the El Paso Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board of Trustees spoke out Monday about the controversial and lucrative contract awarded recently to the agency’s CEO Gary Larcenaire.
The contract calls for Larcenaire to be paid $170,000 a year base salary, $750 a month in car allowance, a $50,000 bonus if he stays with MHMR through 2014 and $255,000 in severance pay if he is terminated prior to that.
Sunday night on ABC-7 Xtra, Larcenaire was asked whether the contract and severance was justified.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Nothing was done underhanded and it’s all based on salary surveys.”
The average non-profit CEO salary in the U.S. is about $166,000 per year. The average mental health CEO salary is about $175,000 and the average Texas MHMR CEO salary is more than $156,000.
“We’ve got public servants in this community, that are fine public servants in this community, that are paid far more than I am,” Larcenaire said on Xtra.
Jim Valenti, CEO of University Medical Center has an annual salary approaching $425,000. Ed Archuleta, CEO of El Paso Water Utilities, is paid $275,000 a year base salary. El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia makes more than $272,000 and City Manager Joyce Wilson upwards of $216,000.
On Monday, ABC-7 asked MHMR board chairman Javier Banales about Larcenaire’s contract and whether he thought it would create the stir that it has.
“I really didn’t,” Banales said. “I felt it was within the range of the scope.”
Banales added that he didn’t recall any opposition to the contract from the rest of the board.
“We had just lost the second most tenured and most important administrative position within the center,” he said, “and our concern was the CEO (larcenaire) could also leave.”
Banales said the board also considered peer reviews prior to awarding the contract, most of which have been positive under Larcenaire. Only two members of the eight member review team, however, were from state agencies — Henry Darrington from the Department of State Health Services and Sam Bordovsky from the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Servies.
Banales had no problem with the idea of televising MHMR board meetings in the future, although he pointed out they are and have always been open to the public. The MHMR web site states the board meets every fourth Thursday of the month, but it didn’t say location or time and it didn’t provide agendas or minutes of prior meetings.
