Carolinas HealthCare System paid its CEO $3.7 million in 2010, $287,000 more than the year before as the system lifted a pay freeze and paid bonuses for reaching annual and long-term goals.

Chief Executive Officer Michael Tarwater, 57, who has led the $6.3 billion public hospital system for nine years, received a base salary of $986,172, two bonuses totaling $2 million, and other compensation, including retirement and health benefits, of $630,346.

In 2009 his compensation package totaled $3.4 million.

By comparison, 2010 compensation dropped slightly for Paul Wiles, 63, CEO of Novant Health, a $3.5 billion private, not-for-profit company that owns Presbyterian Healthcare, the competing hospital system in Charlotte.

Wiles, based in Winston-Salem, received total compensation of $2 million, including his salary of $1 million, a bonus of $836,800, and $138,524 in other income, including retirement and health benefits.

Wiles earned $62,000 less in 2010 than 2009, even though Novant also lifted a pay freeze that had been in effect since 2008.

As in recent years, compensation for both executives appears to fall in line with pay at hospital systems of similar size.

Towers Watson, a human resources consulting firm, analyzes published surveys of comparable organizations, including health-care systems, to assist in setting pay at Carolinas HealthCare. Among systems with about $6 billion in annual net patient revenues, the median CEO salary was $ 1.2 million, according to senior consultant Robert Gormley. Median salary plus annual bonus (excluding retirement, health benefits and long-term bonus) was $1.9 million.

Another survey of 28 private hospital systems with a median of $3 billion in revenues showed the median salary for chief executives is $978,000, according to Kevin Talbot of Integrated Healthcare Strategies, a firm that assists Novant in setting executive compensation. The median total compensation for CEOs (excluding retirement and health benefits) is $1.4 million.

This week's announcement marked the third consecutive year that Carolinas HealthCare has made public how much it pays its top executives in salaries and bonuses. Until 2009, it had been nine years since the public system released total compensation for top managers. During that period, it released only salaries.

A state law that went into effect in 2009 mandates that public hospitals disclose total compensation - not just base salary - of its highest-paid executives. That legislation followed a legal fight between the Observer and Carolinas HealthCare over the newspaper's request for the final compensation package of Harry Nurkin, Tarwater's predecessor.

The Observer lost that battle. But in 2007 the new law was passed, requiring public hospitals to report the same information that was already available through IRS reports from private, not-for-profit hospitals, such as Novant.

Carolinas HealthCare is the third-largest public hospital system in the country and the biggest employer in the Charlotte region. It owns, leases or manages about 30 hospitals in the Carolinas, including the 874-bed Carolinas Medical Center. It has grown from 35,000 employees in 2008 to 48,000 today.

The system is a tax-exempt public hospital authority, created by N.C. law. It is not county-owned, but the Mecklenburg County commissioners' chairman appoints the hospital board from a list of nominees provided by the hospital authority. Commissioners also give the system about $17 million to care for indigent patients.

Like most hospitals, Carolinas HealthCare and Novant collect reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, government health programs for the elderly and disabled.

Novant has 26,000 employees and owns 13 hospitals, including four in the Presbyterian Healthcare system. They are Presbyterian Hospital on Hawthorne Lane, the nearby Presbyterian Orthopaedic Hospital, and two community hospitals in Matthews and Huntersville. The opening of a planned Mint Hill hospital has been delayed. Presbyterian receives $1.75 million from Mecklenburg County for care of indigent patients.