Salaries for charity employees may make some donors flinch

A man about to write a check to Three Square decided not to after learning what the food bank's CEO, Julie Murray, was paid. In 2008, her compensation was reported to the IRS as $251,000. That included a bonus of $40,000 for the prolific fundraiser.

Christine Spadafor at St. Jude's Ranch for Children was paid $331,250 in 2008, according to IRS reports, except that total included consulting fees from a prior year. Her salary is now $295,000, and her board believes that's appropriate, considering she is running three locations in two states (Nevada and Texas) and dealing with five boards.

Ed Guthrie of Opportunity Village was paid nearly $314,000 in 2008. His base salary was $233,000, but the total included retirement and health insurance benefits, including a bonus of nearly $54,000 for his efforts to raise $44 million to build the Ralph Engelstad Campus. This year his base salary is $241,000, and he turned down a $24,000 bonus offered by the board.

Too much you say?

Well, you have to decide because there's no formula to determine what's appropriate and what's not when it comes to how much a charity CEO should be paid. You can't plug in expenses and revenues and say someone's salary at a charity should be this amount.

Board Chairman Ralph Manning said St. Jude's was on the verge of shutting down its children's homes four years ago when it hired Spadafor, a lawyer, nurse, author, administrator and businesswoman. (Las Vegas Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick is a St. Jude's board member.)

Manning recognizes Spadafor's salary and bonus potential is on the upper end in comparable operations. But the board believes it is getting value based on her responsibilities, her credentials and her results, plus Manning said Spadafor took the position of three people earning a total of about $425,000.

"The day I walked in, we had a $1 million operational loss and $2 million in debt," Spadafor said. "Fast forward four years, we've had operating surpluses all four years, we're debt free and we did a turnaround without a bailout. Along the way we've started five new programs in this tough economic climate."

Because board members are now personally liable for fines from the IRS if they overcompensate charity employees, Manning said, "You've got to feel pretty strong you can defend your position."

Three Square's Murray wasn't available, but Chief Financial Officer Andy Schuricht said her salary was set by a compensation committee that examined nonprofits in comparable situations. In 2008, the first full year of operation, Three Square distributed 10.7 million pounds of food. In 2010, he said, "We're on target to move 20 million pounds of food."

Murray raised the goodly sum of $28 million in grants and contributions in 2008.

The CFO declined to give Murray's current salary, saying the number might be wrong, but said it was less than the $251,000 total reported in 2008.

Opportunity Village's Guthrie said, "If you don't have strong administrators, there's a real good chance your money is going to be stolen or misused."

But, Guthrie said, "We think the most important thing to note is that Opportunity Village's administrative costs equal only 16 percent of our total operating costs." (The Las Vegas Review-Journal's director of advertising, Bob Brown, is on the Opportunity Village board.)

People flinch when they hear these salaries. Then they ask me to check on a charity they care about.

We all want to know what everyone else is being paid.

Tidbits from other charity records I checked are posted on my blog, like how much Andre Agassi's foundation was paying his ex-friend Perry Rogers before they fell out.

Let's just say it's far more than any of the folks mentioned here were getting.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.