Bristol Health CEO: Job cuts help put health system in the black through the first 5 months of FY25

Hartford Business Journal – Thursday, April 10, 2025
By David Krechevsky

After four consecutive fiscal years in the red, Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group posted a systemwide surplus of $637,000 for the first five months of its fiscal year, in part due eliminating approximately 60 full-time positions.

In a statement released publicly on Wednesday, Kurt Barwis, president and CEO of Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group, noted that Bristol Health had ended fiscal 2023 with an operating loss of $21.8 million, and fiscal 2024 with an “approximately $8.5 million to $8.9 million system operating loss, a 58.76% improvement year over year.”

The improvement to a five-month operating surplus was achieved in part by “corrective actions which collectively improve our operating run rate by $14.08 million on an annual basis,” Barwis said.

That includes total annual labor cost savings of $3.2 million, which is the result of eliminating 60.15 full-time equivalent positions, he said.

More than $2.3 million of that total resulted from eliminating 19 full-time and 27 part-time positions, or 25.78 full-time equivalents. The system also eliminated six open positions, reduced overtime pay and instituted other cuts and efficiencies, Barwis said.

The health system did pay out more than $1.8 million in merit increases, but Barwis notes that was offset by “a voluntary 6% reduction in annual salary” made by all members of his executive team.

Barwis describes the labor cuts as “extremely difficult and painful to make,” but says they were made after “careful consideration of alternatives and with the best interest of our patients and the community we serve” in mind. He adds that the changes did not include “any reduction in core services, nor will they impact the safety or quality of the services we provide.”

The health system’s financial improvement comes amid a time of financial hardship for a majority of the state’s acute care hospitals.

As Barwis states, a recent report by the state Office of Health Strategy on the financial health of Connecticut hospitals “highlights many inflationary impacts, including a 29% growth in salaries and wages, the cost of drugs and supplies increasing by 33% and uncompensated care costs increasing by 2.79%.”

At the same time, he continued, “hospitals and health systems saw little to no offsetting increases in reimbursement rates, which resulted in an overall Connecticut statewide loss from operations” of $75.5 million in 2023.

He adds that while Bristol Health is now “consistently marginally positive from operations, negative headwinds and harsh realities continue to impact hospitals and health systems throughout our state and country.”

Headwinds include the state’s underinvestment in its Medicaid program and proposed federal cuts to state Medicaid programs, among other issues, Barwis said.

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