Ex-Boston Hospital Chief Attracts Renewed Scrutiny for Utility Board Pay

The recently departed head of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is garnering renewed attention over his $91,000 stipend for serving on the board of the nonprofit organization that operates New England’s electrical grid, The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald report.

Paul Levy is seeking reappointment to the post with ISO-New England, a Holyoke, Mass. organization, amid heightened attention to the issue of stipends for part-time nonprofit board members.

Attorney General Martha Coakley is conducting a review of the practice among nonprofit Massachusetts health insurers.

Mr. Levy, a former chairman of the state’s Department of Public Utilities, resigned as Beth Israel CEO in January, several months after he acknowledged that he had a personal relationship with an employee he hired and promoted. A Beth Israel spokeswoman said he donated his ISO pay to the hospital during his five-year tenure there.

ISO pays its nine directors between $78,000 and $106,000 a year. A spokesman for the organization said it does not have a “typical nonprofit board” and requires a panel “composed of experts in the ISO’s field – markets and reliable power system operations.”