Note: With the ongoing investigation by the Federal Authorities into the money management of the Community Health Center in Middletown and it's alleged connection to the campaign of infamous politician Chris Donovan (D). We felt that the article from Bloomberg Reports below would be very helpful in looking at the big picture of salaries for the non-profit CEOs... Yes, it's a lot of money! Yes, they do say give it up for the people! No, they don't (usually) pay taxes on anything! Yes, some of them are allowed to take their spouses (who happens to be a the CEO of another non-profit) and head to India/Tibet for four months to hand with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lamai. If you and hubby are in India/Tibet, then who, mind you was watching the gates at Community Health Center and Kid City?
Former Legislator/Lawyer Kevin Rennie explains the fiasco and even more connections along the money trail...
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/hc-op-rennie-feds-eye-middletown-health-care-agenc-20130322,0,300802.column
http://middletown-ct.patch.com/articles/fed-investigating-on-how-legislature-earmarked-15m-for-community-health-center
Not so many degress of separation?: Meriden Mayor Michael S. Rohde,a Democrat, has been in office since 2008, and is also the director of community
relations for Community Health Center Inc., based in Middletown. Mayor Rohe and Mayor Dan Drew accused incumbent state Senator Len Suzio, who represented the 15th district of push poll calling during the last election cycle. Both then told the media during a joint press conference held on the steps of Meriden City hall they had no proof of the push poll calling, but were acting on suspicion. Suzio lost to Democrat Dante Bartolomeo. Bartolomeo's treasurer served at a Meriden polling location on election day.
"Nonprofit CEO Pay Topping $1 Million Rises With Scrutiny"
More than 20 nonprofit groups, from
New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, paid top executives more than $1 million a year in 2010 and 2011, the Chronicle of Philanthropy found.
The
tally, an increase from 15 such pay packages in the previous study,
showed chief executive officers or other leaders at 23 nonprofit
charities and foundations had taxable compensation exceeding $1 million,
the Chronicle said in a
study to be released today.
“By
far the most comments we get have to do with CEO salaries and a general
outrage and shock at some of the salaries that they see,” said Ken
Berger, president of the nonprofit watchdog group Charity Navigator.
“There are even donors shocked at the notion of a six-figure salary.”
As protest movements such as
Occupy Wall Street have brought more focus on the richest 1 percent of Americans, high pay for nonprofit executives has prompted
New York
and other states to suggest limits on compensation. Nonprofit watchers
such as Berger say it may also prompt additional U.S. oversight or
public policy changes for the $2.5 trillion industry.
“To assume
that you’re going to become a millionaire or a multimillionaire,
running a public charity that’s supposed to provide a public benefit, is
just absurd as far as we’re concerned,” Berger said.
Top
executives at the largest U.S. charities and foundations received a
median pay increase of 3.8 percent to $429,512 in 2011, according to the
Chronicle’s survey of 132 of the biggest organizations. For other large
nonprofits, the Chronicle said information filed in required tax
filings show 2010 pay rose 2.7 percent.
Top Fundraisers
The
Chronicle data is drawn from charities ranked highest in the group’s
Philanthropy 400, the annual list of nonprofits that raise the most from
private sources.
The Chronicle collected compensation data on 274 charities and 49 foundations.
Total
compensation includes salary, bonuses, deferred compensation, and
retirement pay that individuals received in a single year. Other
payments can include housing allowances, club dues, and additional perks
nonprofits counted as compensation.
The annual survey is a way
for executives and their boards to take a measure of pay and for donors
to find out what’s happening, as well, said Stacy Palmer, Chronicle
editor.
“Most at nonprofits are not millionaires, and it’s been
tough times with many people not getting raises,” she said. “But there’s
also a lot more focus on results, and that means paying for talent.”
Hospital, Museum
The
highest-paid executive in the Chronicle survey, which was obtained by
Bloomberg Rankings, was Herbert Pardes, executive vice chairman of the
New York Presbyterian Hospital board of trustees, who had 2010
compensation of $4.3 million, including a $1.71 million salary. Houston
Museum of Fine Arts Director Peter Marzio, who died in December 2010,
was second with $3.94 million, in part because of payouts triggered by
his death, the Chronicle said. Pardes didn’t return a phone call seeking
comment.
Among traditional charitable groups,
American Cancer Society
CEO John Seffrin was fifth with a 2010 compensation of $2.08 million,
including $1.49 million in deferred compensation and retirement. Boys
& Girls Club CEO Roxanne Spillett, who retired last year after 34
years with the group, ranked eighth with 2011 compensation of $1.81
million, the Chronicle survey showed.
Cancer Society
Seffrin’s
compensation for 2011 was $764,135, including deferred compensation,
and he declined an incentive for fiscal 2009 performance and agreed to a
cut to his base salary of 6.4 percent, the American Cancer Society said
in an e-mailed statement. In 2010, his total compensation was $2.4
million, which included $1.62 million in deferred benefits that will be
paid at retirement, according to the statement.
Spillett’s
compensation included $1.18 million that was paid out as part of a
previously reported retirement plan and the compensation was reviewed by
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC and her pay was “in line with industry
standards and appropriate,” spokeswoman Jan Still-Lindeman said in an
e-mailed statement. The group doubled in size and tripled in financial
scope during Spillett’s 16 years as CEO, Still-Lindeman said.
New York University’s John Sexton had compensation of $1.31 million, ahead of Yale University President
Richard Levin’s $1.19 million, according to the Chronicle data. Levin and Sexton didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment.
The top executives for the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, Los Angeles Opera, Metropolitan Opera Association, Museum of
Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago also made the list.
CEO Compensation
By
comparison, the median total compensation for Standard & Poor’s 500
CEOs rose about 6.2 percent to $9.6 million in 2011 from about $9
million in 2010, according to Equilar Inc., which gathers data on
executive pay at public companies.
More than 1.4 million
nonprofit organizations were registered with the U.S. Internal Revenue
Service in 2009, and the 632,604 public charities -- those known as
501(c)(3) organizations -- reported $1.4 trillion in revenue and $2.53
trillion in assets, according to a 2011 report by the
Urban Institute in
Washington, which tracks nonprofit activities.
Groups such as
Charity Navigator
aren’t suggesting specific limits on pay such as a $199,000 limit
proposed in the state of New York, Berger said. The nonprofits need to
ensure the pay they adopt is easily defensible among other executives,
he said.
The norm is low six-figure compensation, a median of
$130,000 to $140,000 for midsize to large nonprofits, he said, with pay
rising to $500,000 for the biggest groups, Berger said.
Top Charities
The
focus of the pay controversy, much like the protests centered on the
richest Americans, is on the 1 percent of the largest charities that
raise about 86 percent of the funds, Berger said.
“In these very hard times, money is all that more precious and you have to maximize it,” he said.
The
furor over pay to CEOs of nonprofits is misplaced and may end up
damaging charity fundraising, said Dan Pallotta, author of “Charity
Case” and “Uncharitable,” books on the steps the nonprofit world can
take to be more effective.
“We have this total double standard
that extends beyond compensation issue where we blame capitalism for
creating these huge inequities in our society and then refuse to allow
the nonprofit sector to use the tools of capitalism to rectify the
situation,” he said.
Expert Executives
The expertise
of a top-paid executive will increase the amount of money raised at the
nonprofit organization and also provide more efficient leadership,
Pallotta said.
“It’s always positioned as a zero-sum game, where
any money paid to the leader is money wrenched out of the hands of
those kids rather than looking at it as money invested in the leader to
potentially dramatically enlarge the money available to the kids,” he
said.
Each of the highest-paid coaches at nonprofit universities
in 2009 was paid more than $2 million, and people accept that, Pallotta
said.
“We look at this through the lens of preserving the
purity of the nonprofit ethic rather than looking at it through the lens
of do we actually want to solve these problems and what would it take,”
he said. “You had better invest in leaders who are experienced at
playing at those levels.”
He traces some of the resistance to
highly paid nonprofit executives to the tensions between religion and
capitalism set by the first Puritan settlers in
New England. The Puritans were aggressive capitalists who saw charity as penance for making money, he said.
“The
nonprofit system is like this church,” Pallotta said. ``It’s this
irrational, emotional religion that’s all about scoring holy points so
that you’ll be saved from eternal damnation. I have this friend who
says, ‘the cheapest way to pay for things is with money.”’
