The man leading Carilion Clinic's multimillion-dollar transformation to redefine how health care is delivered in Southwest Virginia earned $2.27 million last year.

Dr. Ed Murphy, the not-for-profit clinic's chief executive officer, earned $1.37 million in compensation and $901,206 in employee benefits for the year ended Sept. 30, 2007, according to tax documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service on Aug. 15 and provided to The Roanoke Times late Wednesday. All not-for-profits must file annual reports to the IRS and make them available to the public upon request.

That's slightly less than the $2.4 million Murphy earned during the previous fiscal year.

Murphy's salary was not cut. A note in the prior year's tax document, called Form 990, states that Murphy's compensation included payments deferred from previous years.

"His compensation reported higher in the previous year because in that year he received retention bonuses that were due to him that were not owed [the following year]," Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart said.

Legislators and watchdog groups have recently called for more disclosure in nonprofit compensation packages. New income-tax reporting requirements for organizations that file Form 990 will go into effect this year and next. In part, the new forms seek details on how executive compensation is determined.

CEO pay for the most recent fiscal year is not yet available from neighboring not-for-profit hospital systems. However, Lynchburg-based Centra Health CEO George Dawson earned $743,391 in combined pay and benefits for the previous fiscal year. Centra is about half the size of Carilion, earning $512.4 million in revenues last year compared with Carilion's $1.1 billion.

Knox Singleton, CEO of Inova Health System in Falls Church, earned $1.19 million last year.

Carilion, the region's largest employer, announced in 2006 it would change from a traditional hospital system to a physician-led clinic similar to the Mayo and Cleveland clinics.