The Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center (CS-HHC) today announced that starting next month (July) it will increase its minimum wage to $18 an hour. The hike will put an additional $1 an hour in the paychecks of staff paid less than $20 an hour.

The increase is the second in a plan to incrementally bring employee’s pay scale in line with competitive market rates, including minimum wage earners. CS-HHC started the increase a dollar above and four years ahead of Connecticut’s minimum wage increase mandated in 2019 from $10.10 to $15 an hour by 2023.

“As we looked out over the horizon seven years ago, we understood our ability to provide high quality health care would be inextricably tied to our ability to recruit and retain the best people for the job,” said CEO Michael Taylor, saying this foresight is paying off for the community as well as the health center. 

“Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our staff, not only have we sustained our growth trajectory, we also have been able to respond to the most devastating health crisis to hit our communities in a century.” Thus far, CS-HHC has provided tens of thousands COVID-19 tests and administered almost 41,000 vaccinations, mostly to Black and Brown people and other historically underserved members of the community, including the homeless, according to Taylor. 

CS-HHC, the second largest community health center in the state with a staff of 650, has doubled in size since 2012. Serving more than 50,000 people annually, the community health center has either renovated or replaced and expanded its care sites

while adding at least six new ones in the recent years. 

Taylor said, “These accomplishments afford us advantages that are considerably more difficult and even impossible for smaller organizations to achieve.”  He said, “Remaining a competitive, preferred employer will always be a factor in the equation as we provide the highest quality health care services possible.”