"... but is somewhat counteracted by the loss of 24 positions from cost-reduction efforts and 46 positions from dialysis units that have closed."

The hospital board also approved a salary increase for CEO Ryba, increasing her base salary to $800,300, up from $755,000, with a "performance incentive" that can boost her pay up to 45 percent. The target performance incentive was set at 30 percent."

Those are a lot of people brushed under the rug! Were the cost reduction efforts made so that an extravagant incentive bonus could be paid out to the CEO? Also a pay boost up to FORTY-FIVE PERCENT is OBSCENE in these times especially when the hospital claims to be conservative in spending after having spent bushels of money under the last administrator's watch.

I wonder how much this CEO will be paid when it comes time to part ways.

Typical Corporate bottomline analysis of priorities: Exec salaries, increased budgets for programs that are not patient care specific, cut the "driftwood" ie medical staff who provide direct patient care etc etc etc.

Reducing staff to patient need ratios means cutting patient care quality, and they know this very well.
This correlation is well-known well proven in all care facilities.

But under the banner of intelligent planning we get this nonsense.

El Camino Hospital is behaving like the for profit outfit it has become.

will some of the surplus go to expand grants for community health programs

CEO compensation aside (what's the MerNews say over $3M ave. for a Bay Area private CEO?)
- The District at least has reasonably transparent finances (though it is still interwined with the non-profit Corp.)- The local elementary school districts directly benefit now, with public health-school nurse positions directly supported by the hospital taxing district. There are various other avenues of supporting local public health that the (public) hospital district now does a reasonable (to good or great) job on.