The former head of the Alberta Health Services board says he stands behind the board's decision to permit bonuses to be paid out to AHS executives.

Steven Lockwood says a commitment had been made and he felt they should abide by the contracts they'd signed. "I think at this time the payment of those amounts for their pay at risk, should not be cancelled and they should go forward, but I think the whole issue that's arisen over the last couple of days has been about our board's decision to move forward and have those amounts paid and I think the government;'s taken an opposite view on that. I appears that the government feels they have the right to not pay it."

He says it's a matter of sticking to the commitment he made in February that the bonuses would be paid and there's an agreement with the management personnel that if 'pay at risk' is earned it will be paid. He says it also has to do with future recruiting. "If you're in an organization that gets in the habit of not honouring your contractual commitments to your workforce it's going to be very hard, in my opinion, to attract the best and the brightest type of people to your company and health care in Alberta we've got one regional health authority delivering for all Albertans and there's no doubt in my mind Albertans want the best talents we can get."

He says he's happy that health minister Fred Horne has said in conjunction with the appointment of Janet Davidson as administrator left the issue of 'pay at risk' with her and he has confidence with her guidance and after discussions with CEO Dr. Chris Eagle will lead to what he feels is the right result to pay the bonuses and have the staff paid  to the extent they've earned it.

Lockwood says having things like human resources, finance and legal affairs taken care of out of a central location made sense. But when it comes to the delivery of health services he wanted to see more local decision-making and hopes that project will continue to move forward.

As for the budget surplus, which he said Tuesday, could be as high as $100-million Lockwood says a department as big as health care can't be fine tuned down to a million dollar or two-million dollar surplus annually. "You've got to be operating with a long term vision and a long term goal to maintain a balanced budget over time with obvious surpluses and deficits occurring year to year."  He says because of changes in the way public boards do their accounting the money that's been reserved for certain commitments still shows up as part of the surplus, so it's not like that money is in the bank ready to be spent.