Girard Medical Center insiders named to run bankrupt nonprofit

The board of bankrupt North Philadelphia Health System picked two insiders to manage Girard Medical Center, according to a court filing Friday.

NPHS named Gerri H. Walker, a member of its board of directors and chair of Girard's board of governors, interim president and chief executive with an annual salary of $200,000. Walker, a former Philadelphia Commerce Director and City Representative, is expected to leave the NPHS board.

P. Douglas Maier, the son of an NPHS board member and a former NPHS employee, was hired as a financial consultant to fulfill the duties of a chief financial officer with annual pay of $140,000.

Under a bankruptcy deal designed to preserve Girard's services, Philadelphia will rent the property from its new owner for $2.2 million in the first year and will lease it back to NPHS, which will continue running behavioral health and drug treatment programs there, for $1 in annual rent.

The filing did not say if longtime chief executive George Walmsley III, whose annual pay was $459,504, a February bankruptcy filing said, was still with the organization. Nor did the filing say whether Peggy Boemmel, the organization's CFO for many years, was still there.