As SLO County hospice center closes due to financial loss, CEO was paid $485,000

Tax forms show that the CEO of Wilshire Health & Community Services earned a salary of nearly $500,000 in 2023 with regular annual raises, even as the San Luis Obispo-based medical hospice and community care center announced it will close at the end of the month due to financial struggles.

As the business conditions deteriorated in recent years, CEO Tricia Smith’s salary continued to increase. In 2023, her salary jumped by over $100,000, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer database.

She earned $485,231 in 2023, according to one of Wilshire’s 990 tax forms from that year. That is nearly as much as Cal Poly President Jeffery Armstrong, who earned $519,781 in 2023, according to Transparent California.

Her salary made Smith one of the highest paid nonprofit executive directors in SLO County, based on a review of the 2023 pay for other notable local executives:

• Alan Iftiniuk, CEO of French Hospital Medical Center: $806,961
• Chuck Davison, former CEO of Visit SLO CAL: $306,575

• Kenneth Trigueiro, president of People’s Self-Help Housing: $213,991

• Heidi McPherson, recently retired CEO at the Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County: $211,438
  
  

• Elizabeth Steinberg, CEO at the Community Action Partnership of SLO County: $201,700

• James Dunning, head of the Cal Poly Corp.: $191,896

Smith’s salary was over $140,000 more than any of her employees, and more than $250,000 more than the average nonprofit CEO salary of $217,800 a year in California, according to Salary.com. Other estimates put the average executive director salary even lower, with Indeed measuring $137,619 a year in the state.

Smith’s pay was set by a separate compensation committee made up of all-external parties who decide the Wilshire CEO’s compensation based on average comparative salaries of nonprofits in the same industry from an independent consultant, according to the tax forms.

Mark Wilson, the vice president of business development for Wilshire, said Smith’s salary was no more than 75% of other comparable executive director salaries.

He said because Wilshire is a medical center that offers skilled clinical care, putting Smith’s salary up against non-medical nonprofits is not a fair comparison.

“It’s a lot more complex,” he told The Tribune.

More accurate comparisons, he said, would be to executive directors who manage healthcare and clinical care, like French Hospital Medical Center or VNA Health, a hospice center in Santa Barbara County.

Iftiniuk was the president and CEO of French Hospital in 2023, a role that paid him over $800,000 that year, according to ProPublica’s database.

VNA Health had a revenue of $28.6 million in 2023, according to ProPublica’s database.

Kieran A. Shah was president and CEO in 2023, earning a salary of $395,202 — nearly $100,000 less than Smith — according to the database. A few years earlier in 2020, however, the previous president Lynda Tanner earned a salary of $591,289.

“I’ve never seen anything that would suggest there was anything wrong there and I happen to know because of the way they set their compensation that it’s not an arbitrary thing,” Wilson said.

Smith did not immediately respond to The Tribune’s request for comment.

The CEO’s pay rose steadily over the years but was already at $298,823 in 2014, when the nonprofit reported $22.5 million in revenue, according to tax forms.

The database also shows eight other employees earned six figures in 2023, led by Kevin Parzych, the chief medical director, at $345,215.

Wilshire is made up of five separate nonprofits and corporations, two of which are for profit enterprises.

The nonprofit entities are Wilshire Health and Community Services Inc., Wilshire Community Services and Hospice Partners Inc.

Between the three nonprofits, revenues have stayed relatively stable around $20 million since 2005, with the exception of a dip during the pandemic. Total expenses have overall decreased from $28 million in 2011 to $20 million today. The numbers do not show consistent deficits in recent years.

The revenue of the for-profit corporations are currently unknown.

Wilshire’s closure after more than 40 years will result in the loss of 100 jobs at an organization that provides comprehensive at-home clinical health, senior and hospice care services like nursing, home aids and different types of therapy to thousands of patients across SLO and northern Santa Barbara counties.

Database also notes conflicts of interest reported at Wilshire

ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer database also shows the organization reported conflict of interest transactions on its 990 tax forms at least every year since 2014.

These transactions include consistent annual salary payments exceeding $100,000 to Laurie Smith and Jaysen Smith, the CEO’s mother and brother, respectively, who were both employed by Wilshire.

“The CEO would not be able to pay her mother more just because she feels like it. The board wouldn’t allow it,” Wilson said. “If anything, it’s been the opposite. I’ve seen the CEO treat ... Laurie the same as everyone else.”

Jaysen Smith is only listed in the most recent 2023 tax year forms for Wilshire Health And Community Services and Hospice Partners, which both show he was paid $110,200 as a sales account representative. Wilshire’s 2024 tax year forms have not been published.

Wilshire will close its doors on June 30.

If you are a current or former Wilshire employee or otherwise have information pertinent to Wilshire and would like to speak to a reporter on or off the record, please email cshrager@thetribunenews.com or call 805-781-7809.

This story was originally published June 25, 2025 at 4:53 PM.

Chloe Shrager

The Tribune

(805) 781-7809

Chloe Shrager is the courts and crimes reporter for The Tribune. She grew up in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in Political Science. When not writing, she enjoys surfing, backpacking, skiing and hanging out with her cat, Billy Goat.