Pay for the leaders of New Hampshire’s 23 nonprofit hospitals went up by 18 percent from 2006 to 2009, far exceeding the boost for private-sector workers in general but below the rate for regional peers of the executives, according to the Nashua Telegraph and the Associated Press.

The report on executive pay issued Monday by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies was requested by Attorney General Michael Delaney, who has called for closer examination of compensation at nonprofit medical centers.

“There should be a stronger correlation between hospital CEO wages and the completion of the charitable mission of our nonprofit hospitals,” Mr. Delaney said Monday. The salary study found no correlation between the New Hampshire executives’ pay and standard barometers of hospital performance, including charity care.

Pay for the hospital bosses averaged about $500,000 in 2009 and ranged from $150,000 to $1-million. The average 18-percent increase over the four years covered by the study compared with 4.8 percent for New Hampshire private-sector employees, 14 percent for the state’s health-care workers over all, and 30 percent for hospital CEOs across New England.