2 High-Level Health Department Jobs Created

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved creation of two high-level jobs in the county’s health services department and agreed to pay up to $202,500 a year to attract an associate director of clinical and medical affairs.

As the first stage in a sweeping reorganization of the department’s top management, the supervisors gave Health Services Director Mark Finucane broad latitude to pay up to 50% more than the base salary if necessary to fill the two new positions.

The associate director’s salary was set at $135,000, but could reach $202,500 if the full 50% is granted. That would make the new health administrator the county’s third-highest salaried official after Sheriff Sherman Block and Finucane, who was hired last fall to oversee the nation’s second-largest public health system.

The other new position--director of managed care--would play a leading role in providing outpatient services in a restructured health system that emphasizes community-based preventive care rather than expensive hospital treatment. The base salary for that position was set at about $100,000 a year, which could rise to $150,000 if the full 50% increase in compensation is granted.