CEO of East House to leave a strong legacy

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James Sorrentino prides himself on being in the loop.
The president and CEO of East House Corp. makes it his business to stay ahead of the changes in laws, funding mechanisms and the political landscape affecting the operations and financial health of the $8 million agency.
“It’s not easy,” says Patrice Scheg, a longtime member of the East House board of directors and chairwoman of the board’s search committee. “But Jim is very conversant with the funders and the regulators. He really understands the finances and federal regulations that govern the funding.”
That knowledge base, she says, will be difficult to replace.
Sorrentino, 60, will leave his position by the end of this year, retiring from East House after 29 years of service. The agency hopes to have a successor on board by early fall. Sorrentino will remain as a consultant and will help with the transition.
East House, which provides services to people with chronic mental illness and chemical dependency, was the first halfway house in Upstate New York, established in 1966. Over Sorrentino’s tenure, the organization grew from an $800,000 budget with 36 employees in 1980 to an $8 million agency with 150 employees today.
When Sorrentino took the helm, the agency was smaller and the job was significantly different. In those days, he spent much more time on issues related to direct care and service to clients and less on administrative and operational functions.
In those days, Sorrentino found himself shrinking programs to strengthen and stabilize the agency’s funding base.
“We were spread too thin,” he recalls. “The agency was overextended, so our expenses were greater than our revenue.”
Today, many more of the agency’s clients live in apartments than community residences, with East House providing case management and rent subsidies, and clients holding the leases.
“At that time, we probably had 15 people in apartments,” Sorrentino says. “Now with the independent-living program, we have over 380 clients living in apartments.”
In 1980, there were five “congregate settings,” including four group homes and a floor at the YMCA of Greater Rochester. Today, there are nine.
“The real growth was in helping people live as independently as they can in their own apartment of choice,” Sorrentino says.
But that growth over the years has been accompanied by big increases in regulations and financial accounting and auditing processes associated with Medicaid, he says, and that has resulted in multiple budget submissions and elaborate reporting mechanisms.
“We have had to dramatically increase the capability of our financial accounting staff,” Sorrentino says, noting the agency has managed to keep its administrative costs to 10 percent.
He sees his position today as really three jobs-internal management of the organization, building external relationships and working with the board of directors-all with an eye on the welfare of the client.
“Jim has always stayed in touch with the people he serves,” Scheg says. “He strikes a balance between operations, financial needs and client needs and that’s impressive over a 29-year career.”
Sorrentino says his greatest accomplishment has been building the organization’s capacity for growth, particularly in developing professional staff, including supervisors and managers “so the organization is more sustaining and not as dependent on any one person.”
As a result, turnover is relatively low, particularly among supervisors and managers. Last year, the staff turnover rate was 19 percent, including 18 percent for program staff members and 14 percent for supervisors.
The median length of employment of the agency’s supervisors and managers is 13 years, he says, adding that one supervisor has been with the agency for 30 years.
One part of the strategy to address turnover is taking care in the hiring process, Sorrentino says.
“We need to have stable, enthusiastic, positive staff people who are committed to the mission,” he says. “Our clients are coming in pretty beat up. They don’t have much hope, or they don’t feel like they can do very much.”
In an interview, one East House client, who asked not to be identified, says he arrived at East House at “the low point of my life.” He had been in denial about his mental illness for a long time.
“But once I accepted it, then East House was able to help me,” he says.
Besides attention to hiring, another piece of the strategy to address turnover focuses on employee recognition. Because East House operations are decentralized and spread out, staff members have not always felt recognized and appreciated, Sorrentino says.
So the organization established Quest for Quality, which encourages employees to recognize co-workers who go above and beyond for clients or for other staff members. Each quality award winner receives a certificate and is eligible for prizes through drawings.
Using information from employee satisfaction surveys, East House also established a paid time-off bank-with an option of cashing in up to a week of paid time off-and a true cafeteria plan for benefits, allowing employees to elect medical or other benefits, with flat dollar amounts that increase with years of service.
The biggest challenge for his successor, Sorrentino says, is continuing to manage the resources so that client outcomes take the highest priority. This is a difficult challenge at a time when the demand for services continues to grow and clients’ needs have become more complex. Many clients with mental health issues have underlying physical health problems, a history of smoking and little preventive health care.
“They have a higher incidence of underlying health conditions than the general population might have,” Scheg says. “And many have been in treatment and recovery for many years so they’re getting older.”
East House is looking for a new leader with a background in mental health or chemical dependency, possibly from a similar-size organization, and experience with residential treatment programs, she says. And it is incorporating the succession and transition into its strategic planning process this year.
Sorrentino says he looks forward to doing a variety of things after retirement, including playing tennis and remaining active in consulting. He says he is grateful that he has had the chance to work with so many wonderful people and for the example set by the late East House co-founder, Hettie Shumway.
“I always remember her saying, ‘It takes so little to help another person,'” Sorrentino says.
Kathleen Driscoll is a Rochester Business Journal columnist and freelance writer. Contact her with questions or comments by phone at (585) 249-9295 or by e-mail at [email protected].

04/04/08 (C) Rochester Business Journal