Michael Israel was paid $1.85 million last year as president and chief executive officer at Westchester Medical Center, which topped an annual ranking of payrolls at public authorities in New York.

Israel, who has headed Westchester Medical in Valhalla since 2005, has been the highest paid two consecutive years, having received $1.54 million in 2013, according to the rankings by the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. The figures reflect base salary and other compensation, such as bonuses.

Westchester Medical, which is designated as a public-private New York public benefit corporation, determines its CEO pay based on an independent review of comparable hospitals, according to Mark Tulis, chairman of the board of directors.

“There was a time many years ago when our hospital’s CEO was paid like a public official, and we almost went out of business,” Tulis said. “Now we’ve had 10 years of profitability.”

Israel’s annual salary in 2014 was $1.08 million, the Empire Center report shows. Another nine health care workers total at the Valhalla hospital and Erie County Health Center Corporation were paid at least $500,000 each in 2014.

Some of the other highest salaries in 2014 included 10 Long Island Power Authority employees who were paid at least $179,000, the report shows.

Compare that to the state employee salaries on NYDatabases.com via The Journal News and lohud.com. For example, Nancy Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York, was paid nearly $640,000 last year, the data show.

As for health care executives, Dr. Antonio Alfonso, chairman of the surgery department at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, was paid $819,200 last year. That was the highest for state employee salary for a health care official, the data show

In the nonprofit hospital sector, Dr. Steven Corwin, received $4 million in total compensation as chief executive officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in 2013, the most recent federal tax records available show. Westchester Medical paid $1.54 million to Michael Israel that same year.

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