Former UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff made $10.4M in 2020, IRS records show

Former UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff was paid $10.4 million in compensation during the 2020 fiscal year, an increase of 9.4% or about $900,000 compared to the year before, tax records filed Friday show.

Romoff stepped down last year. Leslie Davis, who was named CEO last August, earned $2.4 million in total compensation in 2020, when she served as senior vice president & chief operating officer for the health care giant’s Health Services Division, IRS filing for the 2021 fiscal year will be made public in 2023.

The year 2020 was marked by the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, which brought increased patient volumes to hospitals across the country, including UPMC facilities. The nonprofit health system headquartered in Downtown Pittsburgh’s U.S. Steel Tower had an operating income of $836 million for 2020.

UPMC has 92,000 employees across 40 hospitals and 800 outpatient sites and doctors’ offices throughout Pennsylvania and beyond. It also runs a health insurance division that grew 3% in 2021, and now has more than 4 million members. UPMC is one of the largest non-government employers in Pennsylvania.

Tax filings showed that 42 top executives and physicians at UPMC made more than $1 million in compensation in 2020. The year before that, 32 people did.

Revenues have increased for UPMC since the start of the pandemic. In 2021, UPMC reported $24 billion in operating revenue, an increase of $1 billion, or about 4.3%, compared to 2020.

The health care giant has come under scrutiny over the years for its nonprofit status and whether it is providing enough community benefits since it doesn’t pay local property taxes.

Officials have pushed back against these objections and noted UPMC gave $1.7 billion in IRS-guided community benefits for the 2020 fiscal year, including investments in affordable housing, contributions to a new homeless shelter for Downtown Pittsburgh and a workforce development program.