A Miami hospital leader just got a $242,000 raise. How does the salary compare?
The chief of Miami-Dade County’s public hospital system just got a big raise.
Carlos Migoya makes more than mayors, city managers, police chiefs and school superintendents. But he’s not the highest paid health executive in the nation, or even in South Florida.
What does Migoya’s paycheck look like?
After a $242,054 boost in salary, a nearly 21% raise, Migoya is pulling in about $1.4 million a year at the nonprofit Jackson Health, one of the largest public hospital systems in the nation.
The 74-year-old CEO, who has been with Jackson 15 years, has big plans for the health system. But he’s also thinking about retirement.
“I never thought I’d be here this long,” he said during a Zoom interview with the Miami Herald, noting that the Jackson CEO position has now been his second longest job. “Ever since I got here, my number one job was always to find the right replacement for me.”
Although Migoya hasn’t decided on when he will retire, he has a possible successor in mind: David Zambrana, Jackson Health System’s president and chief operating officer, who has worked alongside him for years.
Zambrana, a registered nurse and doctor of nursing practice, began his health career at Jackson Memorial working in cardiac surgery intensive care, trauma and pediatric intensive care. He came back to Jackson in 2016, when he left his job as chief executive at the neighboring University of Miami Hospital for the same job at Jackson Memorial Hospital. He is now Jackson’s chief operating officer.
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Migoya won’t be the one to decide Jackson’s next CEO. That task will fall to the seven-member Public Health Trust, the board that just gave Migoya a pay raise. But Zambrana “would have not only my support but my complete recommendation that he would be the first to eventually take over” Jackson, the CEO said.
“You want to make sure you leave at the right time and I don’t know what that is right now. A lot of challenges are ahead,” Migoya said. “We will make that decision at the right time and I don’t know when that is.”
Comparing hospital salaries of the bosses
Migoya’s raise is part of a new two-year contract with the governing body that oversees Miami-Dade’s public hospital system. Its meant to make his salary more competitive with other CEOs that run not-for-profit health organizations similar in size and complexity to Jackson. Migoya’s salary, like all Jackson employees, is accounted for in the hospital system’s operating budget, which comes from patient revenue, taxes and philanthropy.
So how does Migoya’s salary compare to other hospital executives?
Under the new contract, Migoya’s total compensation package would be the sixth highest of 21 public health systems with revenues greater than $1 billion, Michelle Kligman, Jackson’s executive vice president and chief human resources officer, told the board in February.
With his raise, Migoya’s base pay is similar to other South Florida hospital CEOs. But his total compensation — salary combined with benefits that will bring him to at least $1.74 million in 2025 — is less than other hospital leaders.
That’s not unusual.Nonprofit hospitals and private for-profit hospital systems typically pay their top executives more than taxpayer-funded public hospital systems like Jackson. News reports and tax documents give an idea how much money they make.
Migoya’s total compensation is more than that of Shane Strum, who oversees Broward’s two public hospital systems and is the only other public hospital CEO in South Florida. Both make less than other South Florida executives who run not-for-profit health systems, including Baptist Health South Florida, Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Cleveland Clinic Florida and the University of Miami Health System.
▪ The highest paid South Florida hospital CEO in total compensation is Albert “Bo” Boulenger, the president and CEO of Baptist Health South Florida, the largest not-for-profit hospital system in the region and the future teaching hospital of Florida International University.
Boulenger, who became Baptist Health’s CEO in October 2022, received a total compensation of about $3.05 million during the 2022 fiscal year, which ran from June 2022 through September 2023, according to the most recently filed tax documents with the IRS. He was promoted to the CEO job after Baptist Health’s longtime leader Brian Keeley retired. Keeley, who had been CEO since 1986 and then became a trustee member, received a total compensation of about $4.88 million during the same time period.
▪ Joseph Echevarria, president and CEO of the University of Miami and the University of Miami Health System, received a total compensation of about $1.84 million during the 2022 fiscal year, which ran from June 2022 to May 2023, according to most recent IRS tax documents. Echevarria’s UHealth CEO role was expanded during this time to include the university. He became UM’s interim president, and later permanent president, last year. Dr. Dipen Parekh, professor at UM’s Miller School of Medicine and UHealth’s chief operating officer, who oversees UHealth’s day-to-day operations, reported a higher total compensation of about $3.44 million.
▪ Gino Santorio, the president and CEO of Mount Sinai, received about $1.93 million in total compensation in 2023, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, which collects tax documents filed with the IRS.
▪ Dr. Conor Delaney, executive vice president and president of the Cleveland Clinic Florida market, oversees the health system’s operations across the state, including Cleveland Clinic Weston and four other hospitals. He received about $1.76 million in total compensation in 2023, recent IRS tax filings show.
▪ Strum is president and CEO of Broward Health and also serves as the interim CEO of Memorial Healthcare System, two of the largest public hospital systems in the country. Strum makes about $1.3 million annually for his job at Broward Health and declined a salary for Memorial, according to news reports. The Herald could not confirm the salary and benefits breakdown of his compensation and has filed a public record request for his contract.
Salary information was not publicly available for the South Florida executives of for-profit health systems HCA Florida Healthcare, which owns several hospitals across the region, and Healthcare Systems of America, which took over Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, North Shore Medical Center in North Miami-Dade, Coral Gables Hospital, Hialeah Hospital and Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes from struggling Steward Health Care System last year.
Carlos Migoya’s role at Jackson Health
Migoya oversees Miami-Dade County’s healthcare safety net, which provides care to everyone, even if they can’t pay and don’t have insurance. Jackson has seven hospitals, two nursing homes, a renowned transplant center, and several urgent cares, doctors’ offices and clinics across Miami-Dade.
Besides being one of the largest public health systems in the nation, with more than 14,800 full-time employees, Jackson also serves as a teaching hospital through a partnership with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The taxpayer-funded public hospital was ground zero of Miami-Dade’s COVID-19 pandemic. As the hospital CEO, Migoya also serves on the executive committee of the Jackson Health Foundation, the fundraising arm of Jackson.
While he may be thinking of some R&R, for now Migoya is focusing on working with the team he has built through the years to “drive Jackson to the levels of competition that we need to be at to be able to be a thriving and sustainable system for Miami-Dade County.”
Migoya, a retired banker with decades of experience in the banking industry, including serving as regional president of Wachovia in North Carolina and the CEO for the Atlantic region, was hired in 2011 to help steady the financially wobbly Jackson.
He also had a bit of public service experience, although at a much lower salary. Before coming to Jackson, Migoya worked for $1 a year as Miami city manager in 2010 “when bloated union contracts threatened to drown the municipal ledgers in red ink,” as the Miami Herald reported at the time.
In his first year as Jackson CEO, the hospital system produced a surplus of more than $8 million, its first since 2006. Jackson has since earned an annual surplus every year, including last year when it faced one of its toughest financial hurdles in over a decade.
A breakdown of Migoya’s Jackson Health compensation
In his evaluation, board members commended Migoya for his leadership and vision of growth. In the anonymous evaluations, which the Miami Herald obtained through a public record request, one board member described the CEO as “one of the premier relationship builders in Miami-Dade County.” Another said he was “an extraordinary CEO who has dedicated the last decade of his mind and heart to Jackson.”
Migoya’s pay bump is based on the salary recommendations made by the consulting firm Gallagher, which conducted a hospital CEO compensation analysis for Jackson in November.
Under the new contract:
▪ Migoya will now make a base salary of $1.4 million. In February 2026, he’ll get a 3% raise, bringing it up to $1.44 million. The new contract runs through June 17, 2027.
▪ He’ll also receive $340,897 worth of annual benefits.
▪ The CEO may also be eligible for an annual performance bonus based on how well Jackson does financially each fiscal year.
▪ Migoya’s total compensation, salary plus benefits, for 2025 will be at least $1.74 million and at least $1.78 million in 2026, not counting bonuses.
Migoya said that his desire to continue leading the health system comes from loyalty to his team and what Jackson “means to this community.”
He’s excited for Jackson’s future plans that include building one of the largest ERs in the nation and the construction of affordable workforce housing for employees, and expansion of outpatient services.
“There’s a lot of people that are not only alive,” he said, “but have quality of life because of the work that’s done at Jackson.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
