Nine members of the University of Maryland Medical System’s Board of Directors — including Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh — have business deals with the hospital network that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each, a review by The Baltimore Sun has found.
Members of Maryland’s business and political elite hold unpaid, voting seats on the nonprofit system’s 30-member board. They govern 11 hospitals that bring in more than $2 billion annually from patients.
But as they oversee the hospitals’ work, about a third of appointed members receive compensation from the medical system through contracts with their businesses. They provide goods and services to the system, ranging from consulting to pest control and civil engineering, according to financial disclosure forms reviewed by The Sun.
The state Senate’s Finance Committee is scheduled to hear testimony Thursday afternoon on legislation that would make it illegal for board members to profit from contracts with the hospitals they govern.
Sen. Jill P. Carter, a Baltimore Democrat, sponsored the bill. She argues there need to be strict controls over how business is conducted at taxpayer-backed hospitals.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Luke Broadwater over at the Baltimore Sun