Travaglini to receive hospitals job offer

The Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals plans to offer Massachusetts Senate President Robert E. Travaglini its top job tomorrow, with an annual salary of more than $300,000, according to someone briefed on the council's discussions.

The lobbying group's nine-member board has scheduled a telephone conference call tomorrow afternoon to vote on the offer, which would require the council to double the dues of its 24 member hospitals, up to $40,000 each, the source said.

Travaglini's spokeswoman, Anne Dufresne, said the Senate president would not comment on the possible job offer.

In an e-mail to the Globe, Travaglini said, "It is flattering to be mentioned for nearly every job that has become available recently. However, I have not applied for any positions."

With Travaglini as its president, the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals would significantly raise its profile, as the powerful Beacon Hill figure is seen as an attractive advocate for other, more powerful industry groups.

The council does not receive as much attention as the much larger Massachusetts Hospital Association, whose membership includes the major Boston teaching hospitals.

Many community hospitals are losing money or barely breaking even, making them heavily dependent on lobbying and legislative support for Medicaid reimbursements and other public funding.

Travaglini also could advance other parts of the group's legislative agenda, including efforts to discourage doctors from opening competing surgical centers and to win more access to publicly backed bond money. If he were to take the job, the current part-time executive director, Donald Thieme, would remain with the association in some capacity, the source said.

Travaglini's name has been mentioned to fill the vacant presidency of the Massachusetts Hospital Association , but that organization is conducting a nationwide search for candidates that is expected to take six more months. He is also seen as a potential candidate for the head of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council after the forced resignation from that post of former House speaker Thomas M. Finneran, who pleaded guilty in January to a felony charge of obstruction of justice in connection with a 2004 redistricting lawsuit. The biotechnology council job also is expected to take months to fill.

If Travaglini wants to take a private sector job this year with any organization that has an interest in state government finances, he must move quickly, according to the person familiar with the council's plans, because once state budget negotiations begin, he could not entertain job offers from organizations affected by the budget.

Travaglini, an East Boston Democrat, is a cancer survivor who also underwent serious heart surgery in 2001 at age 48.

With college tuition bills looming for his three children, he is said to be looking to increase his income from his current $90,000 a year as Senate president.

But the $300,000 being floated by the community hospitals group would pay significantly less than the other two jobs, both of which paid their previous leaders about $500,000.

The source said the possibility of Travaglini's interest in the community hospitals job has been promoted to the group by former state Senator Henri S. Rauschenbach , who is now a Beacon Hill lobbyist and partner in a lobbying firm, Smith & Rauschenbach .

The firm last year had a long list of hospital and healthcare clients, including both the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals and the Massachusetts Hospital Association, according to records maintained by the secretary of state's office. Rauschenbach could not be reached last night.

If Travaglini heads for the private sector, he will be following a path that other Beacon Hill leaders have blazed in recent years. He succeeded Thomas F. Birmingham , who left the post of Senate president in 2003 after an unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2002. Birmingham now works as senior counsel at the Boston law firm of Edwards Angell Palmer and Dodge LLP . In 2004, Finneran resigned to take a $416,000 job as head of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.

The Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals and the Massachusetts Hospital Association share a number of members, but the two organizations are not always in agreement when it comes to their legislative agenda. Community hospitals are competing for patients against the larger teaching hospitals, which are also members of the bigger group.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association presidency became vacant this year after the board decided to fire former president Ronald Hollander .

Massachusetts Hospital Association officials have been aware that the community hospitals might make a bid for Travaglini, said the group's chairman, Daniel Moen , who is chief executive of Heywood Hospital in Gardner.

"If the Senate president decides to go that way, we've got great respect for the man," Moen said.

"If he were to enter the hospital community by that route, I would look at it as a great plus. The more strength we have as a field, the better off we'll be."

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.