Hopewell therapists paid less than state average despite agency’s financial strength

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Therapists who work at Hopewell Health’s Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Services location on Columbus Road in Athens cited low pay and high caseloads as primary issues in their decision to unionize with other behavioral health workers at the agency. 

Excluding 15 employees who earned over $100,000 — including two dentists who earned about $400,000 — Hopewell paid employees an average of about $33,600 in 2019, based on its most recent 990 filing and 2019 audited financials, available through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. (The average amount paid to employees is at least slightly less than average yearly wages because of employee turnover during the year.)

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Current and former child and adolescent therapists reported starting pay between $17.10 per hour and $21 per hour, which one employee said is the current starting pay rate for the position. 

A starting pay rate of $21 per hour amounts to about $43,680 per year, less than Ohio’s average base pay for therapists at the start of their careers, which stands at about $49,500, according to the job site Glassdoor.

One longtime employee reported earning $24 per hour — or about $49,900 per year. That’s substantially less than the average base pay rate for therapists with comparable experience in Ohio, which stands at about $63,000 per year according to Glassdoor.

Although wages appear to have remained fairly stable at Hopewell between 2015 and 2019, over the same period the company more than doubled its net assets, or funds available at the end of each year.

The most dramatic growth in the organization’s net assets occurred in 2020 and 2021, when Hopewell increased net assets by $10.3 million and $8.2 million respectively. 

Hopewell entered 2022 with just under $38.2 million in net assets — over $2 million more than the organization’s entire payroll in 2021. Salaries constituted 55% of Hopewell’s expenditures in 2021.

Data to calculate average pay to employees in 2020 and 2021 is not yet available. Corissa Spence, an organizer with AFSCME Council 8, said in an email that some workers reported pay increases during the pandemic, but “everyone has not been raised the same amount.”

“It’s discrepancies like this and the lack of transparency that’s a large part of the problem for the workers,” Spence added.

Further reading: Hopewell Health Centers employees form agency’s first union