Trustees for New Hampshire-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center approved cutting 300 full-time jobs over the next 12 months to help close a $50 million budget gap, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports.
The hospital currently has 200 vacancies and employs about 8,800. The hospital typically loses 500 people per year through attrition, Rick Adams, a DHMC spokesman told the Union Leader. The headcount cuts, which will occur across the Dartmouth-Hitchcock system, will involve eliminating targeted vacancies, attrition and redesigned work. Layoffs will be the last resort, according to a statement.
The decision is just one of several steps planned to bring expenses in line with revenues.
Like other hospitals, Dartmouth-Hitchcock--a tertiary care center--has been hard hit by the recession and a drop in payments. What's left after expenses fell short in 2010 and the problem was bound to persist if steps weren't taken, Adams said. In 2009, the medical center absorbed more than $87 million in Medicaid losses. And a steadily widening gap between expenses and revenues.
Others steps in the budget plan for FY 2011 include:
- No raises for Dartmouth-Hitchcock presidents, officers, vice presidents, department chairs and center directors.
- Performance-based salary increases capped at 2 percent for everyone else effective Jan. 1.
- Less paid time off for employees hired after Jan. 1, 2011.
- DH will lower the portion of employee health insurance costs it pays to 80 percent.
To learn more:
- read the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center press release
- see the Union Leader article